Renting in relatively smaller cities (exchange student, sorry for English)

Yeah, basically the title. I've applied for a semester abroad in Finland and hopefully if everything goes well I'll be living in Finland for a couple months. Heard wonderful things about the specific university there, hence why I applied.

But my question would be how does looking for appointments in cities like Rovaniemi (so nothing Helsinki-sized) work if one doesn't speak Finnish? I've heard mixed experiences regardless student dorms, and since I've lived in one before moving to an apartment I'd like to avoid it as much as possible.

Are landlords wary of shorter contracts with foreigners? How harder is it to find an apartment if I can't come to see it and can't speak neither Finnish nor Swedish?

If nothing works I'll have to be in a dorm, but I'd like to at least try and find my own place (or maybe share a place with a colleague)

Over here I've got a friend that simply couldn't find apartments because even though the landlords knew some English they got frustrated with the said friend because they'd ask questions the landlord couldn't answer properly in English (e.g. when was the building last renovated if it was an older building (we got some from the 1910s))

Although I've never been to Finland before, given how much people say the education system is good, I'd assume landlords would know *some* English almost universally.

I also know people who moved in somewhere else without coming to look at a place with the most broken knowledge of the local language and still got decent places.

Are there some things that I should pay attention to? Some common scam tactics that usually only work on foreigners? Is there anything I can do to increase my chances of getting a place?

Most of the threads I've seen are about Helsinki or other cities in the south, nothing really touching on Lappland. That's why I made a thread, thinking maybe there's some regional differences.

Also I'm an EU citizen with European health insurance, so that could also help?