Finding an Apartment in Shanghai: How to pay what the locals are paying
- Sunday May 10,2009 11:36 AM
- By Iris
- In how to do stuff, shanghai
Five tips to help you hold on to your sanity and get a fair deal in the Shanghai property search.
1. The estate agent doesn’t care what kind of apartment you want.
This can be the most frustrating thing to come to terms with if you aren’t expecting it. So expect it. You’ll tell him:
- your budget
- the location you want to live in
- he number of bedrooms and bathrooms you expect,
- the minimum square measurements you want
- even the street you want to live on
He, with commission on the brain and a total disregard for your spec in his heart, will proceed to take you on a wild, incredibly hot and rage-inducing goose chase, showing you everything but what you actually asked for.
The way round this: Don’t blindly agree to meet the agent at his office so he can lead you a merry dance. Over the phone, ask him for precise details of each property he wants to show. If they are not exactly what you are after, don’t bother leaving the air-conditioned sanctity of home – he can call you back when he’s found something that meets your criteria.
2. Expat-focused sites AREN’T a good resource for good deals on housing
The apartments advertised on City Weekend, Emoo and Craigslist are invariably pitched at above market value. While these sites, and others like them, might offer ease of search (English listings, English-speaking agents) that’s the only thing they have over Chinese sites or walking into agencies. If you go the local route:
- you will get a much wider range of choice
- you can be a lot more promiscuous in your search by engaging several agents to look for a place for you at the same time
- you can get the local rate; not the you’re-not-Chinese-so-I’m-going-to-assume-you’re-loaded rate
How to do this: A combination of Dict.cn and Google Translate are all you need to get the ball rolling. Without being able to read a single Chinese character, you can still pinpoint addresses that have apartments in your price range by doing simple searches for the street or district name and the Chinese word for either “rent” or “apartment”. Then translate the results into your language. Of course, setting up the appointments is a little trickier. Trickier but still do-able. When my sister first arrived in China and I couldn’t get time off work to look for a place, she had to do it. She’d been in Shanghai about three weeks when I wrote down key phrases for her on a sheet of paper which she produced at each agency she visited. That’s how we found our last place. And, the apartment hunting lexis is tiny – you pick up the key phrases in no time.
3. Don’t be seduced by subway-adjacent properties.
They’re much more expensive than those only served by buses and not at all worth it. For a city that likes to bill itself as a kick-ass metropolis, Shanghai’s metro shuts down at a ridiculously early hour (10pm on average). Instead, find a property near the end/beginning of a popular bus route. One that passes by at least one of your most frequently visited locations.
How to do this – Set aside a weekend to just ride random buses. It’s a great way to explore the city, it’s cheap and it’s useful for harvesting estate agent telephone numbers as you ride through areas you wouldn’t mind living in. As you go, you’ll also learn a lot about the amenities – markets, gyms, supermarkets, bars, restaurants – and figure out what routes serve which subway stations.
4. Be demanding.
This is not the same as being rude or unyielding but there are certain extras that you should go ahead and ask for. It’ll go one of two ways: the landlord will say no (and you’ve lost nothing), or he’ll say yes, and you win. 50-50. I’ll take those odds. I’m a bit of a hoarder so I’m always keen for extra storage space – bookshelves, night stands, laundry baskets, coat racks, shoe stands etc. Right now is a particularly good time to be up front about your requests; it’s definitely a renter’s market.
5. Bargain like you mean it.
Not like it’s an annoying preamble you can’t wait to get out of the way. You see this all the time when you go to the markets: people paying the second price that they are quoted. As they fish out 500RMB for a faux-leather handbag with some historic dignitary’s face emblazoned across it, you hear the self-congratulation dripping from their voices: “Ooh, that’s only $X in real money.” Egads.
If the landlord’s haggling over that last 300RMB, tell him that the 3600RMB he’ll lose over a year by renting it out to you at your price is less than the thousands he’ll lose if the property stays vacant even a single month more. That’s logical and fair. Most people respond to that.
Add new tag, apartment, apartment hunting, bargain, expat, good deal, rent, shanghai
7 Responses for "Finding an Apartment in Shanghai: How to pay what the locals are paying"
I’ve got an even easier way.
You want to be using the web to do the research, not go to agents.
There are a number of good websites that just do apt stuff.
http://shanghai.anjuke.com
http://rent.online.sh.cn
You can find suitable places fairly, easily, and just visit the ones that are in budget.
Learn the Chinese for the area you’ll be in.
The main foreign friendly area’s (in Puxi) are:
?? = Jing an (portman through to changshou road)
?? = Xu Hui (huai hai rd / french concession)
?? = Chang Ning (zhong shan park)
?? = Hong Qiao
And search for those.
Rental is ??
The websites are fairly easy to use now. They used to be absolutely horrible, but they’ve improved dramatically over the last year or so.
Here are some quick instructions for using Anjuke
Anjuke, you would click ?? (rent) – http://shanghai.anjuke.com/v2/rent/
?? is area (see the ones listed above)
?? is monthly rental – choose your price range
?? is how many rooms (leave that at the default, price is more important)
?? is buildout – this goes from ?? (bare concrete), through to standard (aka hovel), through to ??? (ok/fair) and ???? (acceptable/ probably tacky).
Most places have pictures, (but don’t assume they’re correct).
Also check to see if the listing says ???? – that means they’re renting a room
These were my tips for someone else recently who was asking the same questions:
(For Changning area)
No problems to find a nice apt for less than 3000RMB for that area furnished. Prices online in Chinese sites range from 2300 – 3000 for 60 sq/m around that area.
You won’t really find unfurnished apt’s here in China.
Electricity is expensive here – if you leave the a/c on – eg in summer months its a necessity, expect bills of 500rmb upwards.
Water, gas is cheap 7 floors has a lift)
eg ?26?/?15? – this means that its the 15th floor out of 26floors.
You can use google translate on the pages that you look at in order to give you a little more info, but pretty much all the info you need is easy to see – eg m2, price..
Another important point not mentioned at all is that you should exercise caution.
If the landlord is an asshole, don’t bother, even if its a nice apt.
The ideal landlord is one you don’t see until the rent is due.
Also small repairs are usually better off getting organized by yourself, rather than the landlord. Workmen are cheap here, and spending 50-100rmb for fixing a leaking tap is less hassle than having the landlord do it. If it will cost > that then use the landlord…
Another hugely important thing is to make sure that you don’t get ripped off.
Buy a cheap disposable camera, take pictures of the state of the place when you move in. Have the landlord sign these – it will cost you less than 50rmb.
When it comes to moving out, you won’t have any arguments over who scratched this, broke that etc.
I’ve moved into places where the furniture dated back to before I was born, and it was crappy then, and worse condition now, so be prepared, and record everything so that when you move out, they don’t steal your deposit by claiming you broke stuff that was already falling apart.
Also important is to make sure that the landlord is allowed to rent the place out. Make sure that the name on the rental contract matches the name on the Landlords ID.
I’ve had a few friends who have had to move for various reasons related to that. Also make sure that the landlord can give you a fapiao for the rental, as this 95% guarantee’s that the apt is legal to rent.
Ask for a discount if you don’t need a fapiao.
Lawrence.
Hi there, Lawrence
That’s a really comprehensive comment with some good links. I agree with much of that but when you say “foreign friendly areas” I hear “more expensive but not necessarily better areas”.
I do agree that websites are useful but websites are linked to estate agents as well, in the main so whether you walk into an agency directly or get redirected to one via a website it ends up the same.
Great links, thanks for sharing those.
http://loushi.cn/ is a favorite of mine too.
As your site is munging the chinese, I’ve done this as a post here –
http://liurl.cn/2q3
Most people in Puxi, will tend to work in or around those area’s.
I’ve found places in Shanghai for as cheap as 1000rmb a month that liveable, so its totally possible to find something budget friendly in downtown.
The 1000RMB place was on Julu road, near Ruijin lu, paid rent for 1 year. Got my builder to empty it out, repaint for few hundred rmb / 2 days work. Even had a courtyard…
Was a great little place until they demolished it
1000RMB/mth is some record! I like “munging”. Never heard that word before…
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