Flat hunting in Düsseldorf (no commercial ;)

I recently moved to Düsseldorf, Germany and it was a major challenge to find an apartment from Romania without having the chance to actually see the apartment. Of course hunting for a flat nowadays happens on the Internet with again some sites being more helpful than others. There are portals for the whole of Germany such as Immobilienscout 24 or regional ones such as Kalaydo (in cooperation with local newspapers) with a very wide offer for Düsseldorf. The problem with these is that the majority of the flats are being offered by agents .

They usually charge the rent of two months as commission (!) on behalf of the landlord. Oddly enought, Immobilienscout 24 doesn't allow you to exclude commercial offers relsulting in a time consuming manual search for the word "provisionsfrei" (without commission). Another problem is that many private offers on Kalaydo lack pictures which is essential if you search from the distance.

In the end I found two pages which were useful: wg-gesucht.de and duesseldorf.studenten-wohnung.de. Both are targeted to students (flat shares, small apartments) but they are equally good offers if you look for a budget offer or an interim solution ("Zwischenmiete" in German). Ads often have pictures or if not landlords are willing to help out.
If you have some extra cash to spend I'd recommend the Zweitwohnagentur agency with a wide amount of offers and very good descriptions.