China - Week 48 (7/30): The Great Shanghai Apartment Hunt

This past Sunday I went apartment hunting. As I've never gone apartment hunting in China before I enlisted the help of a local Shanghai friend, Wendy (whom some of you might remember), who had scheduled an appointment with a real estate agent located in the area where I wanted to move.

 

But before I get into the details, let me provide a quick FAQ of the questions I hear the most ...

 

 

As I have mentioned before (hereto after stated as "AIHMB") my current apartment was provided courtesy of the company who hired me to work on the Huo Yuan Jia (a.k.a. "Fearless") website. It was a 10 month contract, during which time they paid for my lodgings in this (quite expensive) apartment. But since it is a 12 month lease I was responsible for paying the last 2 months of the year-long lease. But the price of 7500 RMB / month (almost $1,000 U.S. / month) is more than I care to pay, so I decided to move into a less expensive apartment, closer to where I plan on training in wushu.

 

 

AIHMB my contract was for 10 months. After that point I am no longer working. I have decided to spend the next year studying Chinese and training wushu so I do not plan on having a job during that time.

 

 

I have money. Besides, what kind of silly question is that? I just said I was going to study and train for a year without a job. And then you ask about money? You really think I would not work for a year if I couldn't afford it? "Gee ... I'm going to stop working and study and train for a year. What? Money? Oh my gosh! You're right! What will I do about money??? How could I have forgotten that I need to pay for food and rent!" </ END SARCASM > Now stop asking silly questions.

 

 

AIHMB I am still working on jetli.com as time permits. Just part time, a few hours a week on the side to help him out. So, technically I'm "working", as in I'm putting in time on a website for a few hours a week, but it's not a "job". Just helping him out.

 

 

Formal classes, I've discovered, are actually not the most effective way to learn a language. They are helpful for those who can't create a structure and commit the time on their own to study, and they might provide a good general frame-work, but for myself I've found other more effective methods of language acquisition. Many of these tools I've learned from my friend David, who learned 4 languages to fluency (even though he discounts his Italian because it is now "rusty", but trust me, he's fluent) in a period of 3 years. Using what he did along with some of my own ideas I have a program of how to learn Chinese. You want more details? Too bad. I'm tired and don't feel like writing more than that about what I'm going to do.

 

 

AIHMB, there is not a single place where the "Shanghai Team" trains. This isn't Beijing (and even in Beijing they don't all train at the same place anymore) where they have one facility dedicated for the team. The team here is split up between 3 different sports schools and universities (Qing Pu, Tiyu Daxue, Tiyu Xue Yuan) and even at each facility the team members are split up between several different coaches and wushu guans. Where I train at the Tiyu Xue Yuan, there are three different wushu guans with about 6 different coaches. I train with one of them, who happens to be the coach for Yang Yu Hong, Xie Fu Yan, Liang Qiao ("Red Shorts") and a few other folks. They're kind enough to allow me to train with them, but this is mainly due to the help provided by Jenny Tang from TCWR in L.A. (Thanks Jenny for the introductions!). Aside from the Malaysian Team (whose coach used to work at the Xue Yuan for 8 years before going to Malaysia) who train on their own, no other foreigners are allowed to train there. (So people ... please stop asking me for the hook up, okay?)

 

 

Before meeting with the real estate agent at 3:00 I wanted to check out these apartment buildings I had been eyeing when visiting Coach Yang's class. I told Wendy I would meet her at 1:00 on the corner near the buildings, but I got there a bit early and noticed a real estate office across the street and a few listings for units in the building.

 

By the way, real estate offices here deal equally with rentals and purchases. All the units in an apartment building are technically condos. But when someone buys a unit they go to a real estate agent to list the rental availability.

 

So, when Wendy came we asked the lady about the units which were available. She told us a few options, which seemed a little on the pricey side (I was hoping to find a place for 2000 RMB / month or less) so I said I would consider them and asked what other things were in the area. She called up another real estate agent from down the street and he led us to his office across from the train station.

 

Most of the units his office had available were in the complex above their office or down around the corner. They were the 5 - 6 story type of units which are quite common here in China and literally cover the landscape in most cities. I'm not a huge fan of these types, but wanted to see everything that I could.

 

In that office there were 3 agents who helped us and showed us 3 different apartments. I took pictures and will discuss each one in turn.

 

Unit One: 2 bedroom, 2 sitting rooms, 1 bath

Rental Cost: 2500 RMB / month ($315)

Pros: Lots of room, incredibly close to public transportation, furnished

Cons: Tacky decor, a little dirty, Would take some time to get into shape

 

 

This place wasn't bad but the main problem I had with it was that the furniture was something out of the 70's (or the 90's in China) and I would have wanted to gut the whole place and replace everything except some of the desks and tables. It was super convenient, but the price, for what I was getting, wasn't really optimal.

 

Unit Two: 1 bedroom, 1 sitting room, 1 bath

Rental Cost: 2000 RMB / month ($250)

Pros: Cheap, Convenient

Cons: Small, Dark

 

An older guy was living at this place. Was very simple. Bedroom, living room / dining area, small kitchen and small bathroom. The main problem was only one a/c/heater unit located in the bedroom and it was really dark and had a feeling like Golum from "Lord of the Rings" was going to walk out of the back room at any moment.

 

 

Unit Three:2 bedroom, 1 sitting room, 1 bath

Rental Cost: 1800 RMB / month ($225)

Pros: Cheap, Landlord spoke English

Cons: Gross

 

The interesting thing about this place was that the landlady, who was from Hunan, had lived in Indiana for a year and spoke pretty decent English. But gross thing about this place is that it looked like a haven for bacterial agents to cultivate and infect the local population. For 1800 RMB it was the cheapest place I saw, but the reasons for that were pretty obvious. I felt like washing my hands after I left.

 

 

After those 3 units we met up with another real estate agent around the corner who was going to show us a couple places.

 

Unit Four:2 bedrooms (sorta), 1 sitting room, 1 bath

Rental Cost: 2000 RMB / month ($250)

Pros: Nice landlord, rent is negotiable, nice environment and natural light

Cons: 4th floor unit, 2nd bedroom is barely that.

 

Out of the places we had seen so far this one was Wendy's favorite. The landlord was nice and told her on the side to contact him directly and he could lower the price a bit. As a bit of explanation, when you go through a real estate agent you and the landlord pay 30% of your first month's rent as the agent's fee. In order to avoid this most landlords try to circumvent that process. Wendy seemed to think that he'd go as low as 1,700 RMB / month. The lighting was nice, and they had just redone the bathroom and kitchen with new surfaces so it was clean-looking. small living room / dining room, but the bedroom had an attachment room with another bed in it. I wouldn't want anyone living there for too long though because you're only separated by a sliding door. Plus it was on the 4th floor and in the back of a catacomb of 5 story apartment buildings far from a main road. Not an easy place to find.

 

 

Unit 5: 2 bedrooms, 2 bath, 2 sitting rooms

Rental Cost: 2800 RMB / month ($350)

Pros: Big, next to sports school

Cons:Furnishings, 5th floor, dirty

 

This place was so close to the wushu guan and sports school where I train that I could literally see into the wushu guan from the living room window. If I had a good throwing arm I could have thrown a baseball there. But that's about where the pros end. It was kinda gross and I would have had to get furnishings for the whole place. Plus the 5th floor and general "ewww" factor made it not much of an option.

 

 

After seeing those options I decided to go back and meet with the first real estate agent to discuss the options available in the high rise buildings that I had been eyeing. My options were a little limited. I suppose it's due to the popularity of the units. They're very convnient and even though there were about 15 towers in 5 different buildings and it was only built about half a year ago, all the units had already been taken up and purchased.

 

My options were to get a 2 bedroom place for around 4000 RMB a month, but I had a preference to get my own place and 4000 RMB was out of my price range. There was an unfurnished 2 bedroom for 3500 RMB a month, but that was still kind of expensive. And then she mentioned a 1 bedroom for 3000 RMB a month. Well, that I could deal with. Based on what I had seen in some of the other places for 2000 - 3000 RMB a month, I figured it wouldn't have been such a bad thing to check it out at least.

 

But first she was going to show us another unit in another complex across the street from the high rises ...

 

Unit 6/7: 1 bedroom, 1 bath, 1 sitting room

Rental Cost: 2000 RMB / month ($250)

Pros: Nice neighborhood, relatively clean

Cons: Dark and very simple

 

 

I didn't take any pictures of this unit since we only saw it from the outside, but it wasn't all that much. Kind of reminded me of the 2nd one, except with better lighting. It was on the 5th floor too, which was sort of a turn-off. I took some pictures of the surrounding buildings though.

 

And after that we checked out an unfinished unit in the highrise which had the same floor plan as the one that was available. Here are a few pictures.

 

 

The big building is the Shanghai South Train Terminal

 

As you can see the view was amazing, but this unit was on the 17th floor and the available one was on the 10th. The real estate lady said that the landlord wasn't available until later so we decided to go eat some dinner and then check back in afterwards to see if we could see the available unit.

 

After dinner, and some more waiting at the real estate office, we were finally able to go see the unit.

 

Unit 9: 1 Bedroom, 1 Bath, 1 Sitting Room

Rental Cost:3000 RMB / month ($375)

Pros:Awesome

Cons: None except the price

 

View of the building at night.

 

There was a woman living there, who would be moving out on the 16th, but she let us in to check it out. I have to say that this was by far the nicest place I had seen. Nice big living room, the furnishings were nice (new digital sony tv!) and even though I didn't dig the bright red couch and the curtains, I still thought it was several steps above anything else I had seen so far. The kitchen was modern, had a laundry machine, nice bathroom with sliding doors on the shower, bedroom was nice and the view was amazing. Aparently the neighbors were also foreigners too. Since the building was new they even had jacks in the walls for internet and phone. In the pictures it looks a littel cluttered, but I think that's because the lady was in the process of getting ready to move out.

 

So, I decided that I preferred this one and decided to get more information. We went back to the office and Wendy talked to the landlady. Again, the landlady wanted to circumvent the real estate agent and told Wendy to give her a call after we had left. Which we did, and we were able to talk the rent down to 2800 RMB / month ($325).

 

Today we hammered out a few more details over the phone and IM and I'm going to meet the landlady tomorrow to make a deposit and sign the contract (with Wendy's help, which has been completely invaluable to me.) If all goes well, my move-in date will be the 19th of August. My final date to be out of my current home is the 22nd of August so it works out quite well. (BTW, you hire a moving service here and they move all your stuff. It's pretty easy since I'm going from one furnished home to another and all i have to move is clothes, books and knicknacks.)

 

A few more nice things about this place ... The facilities are really nicely developed. Right outside there was a small stream/river and nice winding paths, special covered parking in the garage for scooters and bikes, and the whole community had a guard entrance and a community center which I'm told will house a gym and salon for residents. They already had tennis courts built on top of the building too. It looked like an apartment building in Orange County.

 

Oh, and the best thing is that it is a 15 minute walk from the sports school, and about a 5 - 10 minute walk from the line 3 subway, bus terminal and the train station, and a 15 - 20 minute walk from the line 1 subway which goes straight to downtown. Across the street is a grocery store and several restaurants which deliver are also close by. I saw a noodle place with 5 rmb noodle dishes that looked pretty good.

 

 

So, that's how my great apartment hunt ended. I walked around in the Shanghai summer heat for 9 hours, looked at 9 different homes and came away with a very nice place that has everything I'm looking for. The next challenge is packing my things up, but I don't forsee any major hurdles. But it sure is nice to know where I'll be living for the next year or so ... I didn't realize how much stress I had built up over that but now that it's decided there is definitely a weight that has lifted.

 

And the funny thing is that the place I most had my eye on and first checked on turned out to be the one I ended up with. I kind of figured that might be the cast, but I'm glad I went through the trouble of looking at all those other places too. If I hadn't seen what I'd be passing up and what other options are avialable, I wouldn't have known what a great place I was getting. In the end that perspective was worth all the trouble.

 

 

If you would like to see all the photos from each apartment, please click here for my full gallery.