Housing in Beijing

[heifeng]

So as a contribution to the forums, here is a summary of my housing experiences out here in Beijing =D.

In the Beginning

Expensive:

Student dorms in general are expensive period. At BNU for example the cheapest accomodations are 1200 per month, but most of the students on scholarship get these (This year I heared they even tried to kick out the non-scholarship students from these rooms out b/c there wasn't enough of this type of housing...) so the next cheapest is 1800 with private bathrm, and then the sky is the limit apparently. Nice accomodations, friendly staff. Great for they whole student experience when you are new China. Negative: You will question why you are in China when no one around you is speaking Chinese...

Apartment Inside campus:

My own room, slightly cheaper than the dorms 1400 + 30 for water and electricity, within the bounds of BNU. Clean, safe and I was able to room with a undergraduate friend of mine also an international (Huaqiao) student, thus not able to live with the Chinese students. Cheaper, yet you will soon discover students getting a degree in China are very busy. Isolation may set in and you wonder, why pay so much for housing when you really need to spend more time outdoors meeting people in China. Spending time at home bored is the last thing you really want to do in China...

Liu Lang Liu Lang

Free living arrangements with some local Chinese friends in their danwei's apt. Plus: free room and board & living/language experience. Negative: SMOKING! Also the apt was far far away and walking down the street was a bit like an obstacle course complete with daily sandstorms from all the surrounding construction. Also, at night our xiaoqu had many many ladies of the night, which did make for entertainent whenever the police van came to "round them up", but it wasn't really an area to just stroll around. As much as I like free, if you plan to live with local Chinese you may have to have a high tolerance for smoking! Cramped living arrangments were fine, in fact after going through the "uber-disciplined no English for me while I am in China self-induced isolation stage", being cramped in with guys and girls old and young plus a dog all together was fine, it was a very blended "family". In fact I miss it! However, I could only "mooch" for so long until I decided I should look for my own place again...

The apt. search begins: Having been told by Chinese friend after friend I was getting screwed on housing in the past, I wasn't really sure where to look for housing. The problem was neither were my friends. (They are just fond of telling me I'm going to get ripped off and then scaring me with stories they heard about girls getting attacked...thanks guys, seriously is there a chengyu for if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem?) Anyway, the only other places I knew of where places where the Chinese landlord was specifically looking for a foreigners for higher rent or someone (probably wanting higher rent) also wanted to practice their English. (Sorry I kinda have a problem with both)

Short Term

Eventually, I decided to venture out and get cheaper arrangements. Whenever walking down the street if I approach the apt. agents they would of course refer me to the expensive 1500+ yuan places because they will assume (probably correctly in most cases) foreigners living standards are super high. (Apparently no one thinks foreigners also cram into rooms together during college...sheesh) Luckily I was introduced to an apt agent from wo ai wo jia and told him my price range and requirements and was able to get a short term place (1 bedrm) for 500 yuan a month. However, the fee for such a zhongjie is also 1 month, so it amounted to 750/ month. Somehow I guess not everyone loves foreigners b/c the girl in the other room didn't want to live with me even though she never laid eyes on me so the actual owner of the apt told her to ship out. Luckily the guy who came in to replaced her was a professional kind of guy and things worked out at this apt. (and he actually didn't smoke)

Winter/Spring

So again needing to move (That apt is being sold) I contacted the same fellow and he showed me a few apts. In general it seems like it is very difficult to get a 1 br 1 bath for less than 1500, unless you are willing to live with others. He showed me one for 1000 near the edge of the back of Mudanyuan xiao qu living with some newlyweds. (I keep looking for short term since I don't want to stay in 1 place for a whole year). I thought the place was a bit far since I come home late and don't want to have to wander too far. Later on he did track one down for me for 800/month plus the fee pactically right across from the subway in a 3 bdrm unit with a young married couple and another girl. Again I was concerned about this whole situation. Are they going to boss me around or what. Then I discovered (haha forgot some Chinese people get married pretty young) I was actually older then them by a tad, so now as far as I am concerned I am their LaoDa and am not so worried about them saying anything to me since they are all subleasing too. I also asked my teacher about this type of situation and even he said if they try to qifu me just ignore them. In case I actually run into problems, I can always bluff that I have no clue what they are saying and just smile and ignore them since most people will just assume I don't understand anyway and I am no stranger to hosile living situations if it were to ever come down to that (Yes, girls are ^&*(()* so we have to get use to sort of stuff early on in life) I technically won't be living there until after X-mas but I think that as a female out on her own safety is always a concern, so I went with this place since it is also very secure and at least when living with other people someone knows if you don't come home for a few weeks!

General thoughts on finding housing. There IS relatively cheap housing clean housing living with others (Yes I do realize 800+ yuan or so is still expensive, all my friends make about 1500/month, so I stiff feel pretty priveleged, but I think that I have managed to housing at least 1/2 of what I was paying before). I've been happy with wo ai wo jia b/c the people I did speak to where professional with me and found me what I wanted. (Also FYI return customers for Wo ai wojia get a 15% discount.) I also randomly walked around and talked to another agent which KINDA showed me what I wanted (clean 1 bdrm 850/month living with their "colleague", but I prefer not to live with strange guys, especially who smoke, sorry! Otherwise I would just live with my random internet friends who were trying to get me to rent their extra room), but also they didn't seem quite as professional. However other agents might be more flexible on the fees. I guess it shouldn't take over 1 year to find decent cheap(er) housing, but this is my experience here anyway... maybe next time I'll just call those 'hezu' stickers i find stuck on the pedestrian bridges. ( I did see something on tv where people pretend to rent out an apt and give you keys after you hand over money, but they aren't the real owners, so you definitely need to beware and generally aware!!)

questions, comments, shared experiences welcomed...

hf

-please excuse typos...headache...ughhh

[venture160]

My housing experiences in Beijing

I take classes at RenMin DaXue, and I have lived near the west gate, an area called WanQuanZhuang. On the whole its a rediculously expensive place to live.

The dorms at RenDa are really too expensive to even think about, 1,800rmb plus a month and full of koreans.

I am renting a 1 room in a dorm-style 公寓式 apartment, 30 stories high, 1,400RMB total for everything, internet, heating, water, electricity. The bathroom is shared. My room is BIG with a nice sun-porch that doubles as my quasi living/study room. The room came with all furniture, a TV and DVD player. It is newly renovated. No problems

If you want to go cheaper 1000RMB and lower, expect small and dirty, prob with noisy neigbors playing dungeons and dragons until 3 am in the morning.

THis all being said, I think things are cheaper in WuDaoKou, and obviously WAY more expensive in ChaoYang.