Your Accommodation in China

[fourmat]

this thread was a great idea roddy! I'm arriving in sep without a clue what to expect from the rental market in Beijing so this is invaluable!

thanks to all who posted

[Rincewind]

Well Roddy's pictures are making me rather jealous. So I thought I'd upload a few shots of the place I had last year. The pictures pretty much speak for themselves. However, there are some aspects that you cannot see. For example, you can't see that the they toilet didn't flush and that I had to use a basin of dish water to remove my waist. You can't see the damp that developed in the kitchen during the summer causing the plaster to flake off the wall. You can't see that the landlady would visit randomly to access her storage in the second bedroom. She had her own key and would simply knock and enter. On several occasions, catching me in various states of undress. You can't see that you cannot close the toilet door while you are in the toilet. Nor can you see the leaky gas pipe on the cooker. You also can't see the shower which was just a hose pipe above the toilet which I have already said was too small to actually fit inside. The landlady never did any repairs and I had to fix several things myself.

Needless to say I don't live there anymore. The building was demolished two days after I moved out. My employer paid the rent. My employer had a reputation for being stingy. Apparently it cost 400 yuan per month but I don't believe that.

[roddy]

Looks alright to me. Personally I think the TV cover marked 'TV' makes up for the gas leak.

Re: my place - it was actually much bigger and better than I needed, but when I was flat-hunting it came, was right in the area I wanted, and after 2.5 years of living in a glorified studio the extra space was a delight. Was thinking about moving out and finding a cheaper place but not really getting around to doing it when the landlord decided to sell it anyway, so that worked out quite well - got me off my proverbial.

I wouldn't let landlords leave stuff in an apartment I'm renting any more, it's just lazy. Either move it out, or pay me a storage fee. But don't tell the people I left stuff with in Beijing (sh)

[Prodigal Son]

Since I just moved into a much cheaper place several days ago with a friend:

Type of accomodation: Rented apartment

Description: 115m2, old building, furnished. 2BR and a study, large living room and two dining room areas, big kitchen, one bathroom (马桶)

Rent: 1200Y a month, 6 months paid for. Lease started last weekend..

Location: 合江停(SE Chengdu), walking distance from 东门大桥

Found via: online ad, direct from landlord.

Lease: one year, option to leave after 6 months by paying 100yuan and giving notice

Came with: Standard stuff, leather couch that looks it would be Sherlock Holmes', custom cabinets and shelving built into the walls by the landlord himself. pretty sweet, he's a good carpenter.

Landlord / Building management: Landlord

Notes: I'm living with a chinese friend who just got back from living in Canada for a few years, so my rent is 600yuan a month. I've never had rent this cheap inside of China before, so I can take the money I saved and spend it on equipment and traveling. Or just sit around and work less. I'll post photos if there's a demand, I can't be bothered at the moment.

[Rincewind]

Looks alright to me. Personally I think the TV cover marked 'TV' makes up for the gas leak.

Ah, but the TV didn't work either.

[simonlaing]

Type of accomodation: Rented apartment In Nanjing

Description: 83m2, oldish building, furnished. 2BR , large living room and dining room 3rd floorareas, kitchen, one bathroom (马桶)

Rent: 1600Y a month, 6 months paid for. Lease started last weekend..

Location: Nanjing, walking distance from zhujiang lu, the computer street

Found via: Agent

Lease: one year, option to leave after 6 months

Came with: Standard stuff, but hard chinese sofa, and futon for second bedroom

Landlord / Building management: Landlord

Notes: Nanjing has great bike lanes with french oak trees spanning them. Not as hot as being one of the four hot cities of China would make you think. Also Close to a 1912 bar district. Most of all it is down two alleys and is next to an army base which makes it very quiet.

Compared to Shanghai this is half the price.

Previously 2 years I shared a 2 bedroom plave for 1500, it was old and on the 6th floor right in the down town 2 minute walk from Nanjing U where I studied before. Bit of a crappy kitchen and Bathroom but we ate out a lot so it was fine.

[muyongshi]

Thought I would jump in on this....

Rental Apartment in Mianyang

Description: 133m2, relatively new complex (quiet, lots of trees, and peaceful), NICELY furnished. 3 bedrooms, large living room and a dining room, kitchen, two enclosed balconies (mid sized) one off the master and one off the kitchen, and two bathrooms (master bedroom has attached bathroom with wester, the second is squattie)

Rent: 750Y a month, paid in 1 year terms, 2000 deposit

Location: In Mianyang half way between city center and the college (西南科技大学)

Included: Beds in two bedrooms, 1 desk, massive wardrobe in master bed, coffee table, surround sound, tv, cable box, couch/love seat/arm chair combo (leather), nice marble dinner table, frig, counter top stove, etc.

Landlord

If you're jealous let me know.

[venture160]

I'm jealous of anyone living outside of Beijing or Shanghai as the house prices are 1/3 what I would pay here.

Roddy, where have you moved to now?

anyways, I got a new apartment in Beijing!

Description: Newish building (built in 2005), 65sm apartment with a living room, separate kitchen, bedroom and a small bathroom with a shower. I like this apartment because facing east is nothing but ceiling to floor glass that gives me a view of the smog ingested CBD area. The apartment is fully furnished with Ikea style furniture and comes with a decent TV/DVD player, washing machine, microwave, stovetop fridge etc.

Rent: 2500Y a month, paid in 3 month terms, 2500 deposit. I got my apartment through 我爱我家 so their cut was 90% of 2500.

Location: You can't beat this location if you are working in the CBD! I am a 1-2 minute walk from the Guo Mao subway station and a 10 minute walk to my office where I work everyday. Although I am close to the main rail line that comes into the Beijing station, I am high enough up that I don't hear anything.

[venture160]

Rincewind:

The picture's dont seem to be working for me.

[Rincewind]

Opps, I accidentaly deleted them from the server last weekend.

I moved into a new house, my thrid now, on Monday.

Rental Apartment in Anshan, Liaoning.

Description: 64m2, about 9 year old building located between a kindergarten and a police station, recently decorated interior in clean condition. 2 bedrooms, kitchen, enclosed balcony (converted to be extention of kitchen), toilet (modern and working for a change) and a shower. Security door on bottom landing.

Rent: 800Y a month, paid in 6 month terms, 300Y deposit

Location: Hunan district. About 40 mins walk from the city center or 7 yuan on taxi. Next to 219 park (a BIG park).

Included: One bed (sans matrice), two ring gas hobs, the air between the walls.

Added: Computer desk and chairs to bedroom 2 (830 RMB). Air conditioner (1700 RMB) and matrice for bed (800 RMB). Internet (700 RMB)

Will put up pictures of new and old once the internet is installed.

[magores]

Location:

-Beijing, Chaoyang District, 3rd ring between Panjiayuan Qiao and Jinsong Qiao

Description:

-Old building, 15th floor of 23.

-Totally a locals building/area.

-No idea about size. I'm not good at judging that kind of thing.

-2bedrooms, and I live alone.

Rent:

-Provided by employer, so I'm not positive. But, I think it's around 2200/month.

-I pay gas, water, internet, phone, but employer gives a "living expenses" allowance that covers most of that.

Came with:

-Standard furniture + TV and VCD player (not-DVD??!!) + furniture I've never heard of before. (A thing just for shoes?) I've replaced everything in the living room except the sofa and TV. I use the extra bedroom mainly to store the furniture that came with the place that I don't want to use.

The Good:

-Walk to work is 15 minutes, and that includes time to stop and buy a soda and cup of coffee on the way.

-I actually like the neighborhood.

The Bad:

-Middle of the day, and at night, they turn off one of the two elevators.

-One of the electrical outlets in the living room has NEVER worked.

-The old lady and the old man who fight with each other to see who can look through my trash bags first. (I always separate my recyclables from the actual trash, and give the good stuff to the old lady, but they still fight to be the first to look at my cigarette butts, carrot shavings, and empty plastic wrappers from DVDs.)

-Only one window to let sunlight into the living room, and if I hang my wet laundry to dry, the clothes block that window.

Note: It's not a "bad" place. Not great either. I've already told my employer that I want to move when the lease is up in November. They said okay.

[skylee]

The Bad:

-Middle of the day, and at night, they turn off one of the two elevators.

I think it is good from an energy-saving point of view. We also stop one of the two lifts at night in my building in HK.

[magores]

skylee

I'm sure that's why they do it. And from that perspective, I can totally understand, and support it.

But... It still sucks when the elevator is at the bottom, and then it goes to the top, and then it stops at every floor on its way down to me, and then when the doors open, I see the elevator lady and her chair taking space, and the lady with her bicycle, and the 6 other people.. Leaving no space for me.

[skylee]

magores, I see what you mean. stopping the lift during the day may cause inconvenience like what you said. Perhaps you might try walking down (that is if the staircase is safe and in good condition and it is not too hot during summer).

[magores]

skylee....

I do take the stairs sometimes. But, 15 flights isn't fun.

The stairs are in good condition, if you ignore the fact that at the higher floors, there is dust older than some of the members of this site and lighting is random.

[cdn_in_bj]

Just be glad you have 24hr elevator service - some of the older places shut off the elevators completely after midnight.

Actually, this would be a very good question to ask when you are looking at a place.

[imron]

Type of accomodation: Rented apartment

Description: 64m2, furnished, lounge, two bedrooms, 1 bathroom with shower, kitchen with oven!

Rent: 2500Y a month, paid quarterly. Lease started Sept 07.

Location: A couple minutes walk from Dongzhimen subway station.

Found via: bumped into the landlord while looking around for apartments in the area.

Lease: One year.

Came with: All basic furniture, though apart from the fridge and the washing machine, it's all slightly older stuff.

Landlord / Building management: Landlord is an easy-going sort of bloke, the previous tenant spoke well of him, which is a big plus, and he seems pretty responsive to sorting things out.

Notes: It's not the fanciest of places, but the location is great for me as my commute to work now consists of a 5 minute walk.

[Nathan]

Type of accommodation: Rented and shared apartment.

Description: The minimum size for 3 people to be living in., older building, furnished. Usable kitchen, decent living room, decent bathroom. The bedroom I'm in is smaller than the others, but once one of my roommates moves out, I get to upgrade to a much larger room. We all pay the same rent.

Rent: 1050rmb a month, pay 3 months at a time.

Location: Wudaokou, Dong Wang Zhuang, 10 minutes away from Tsinghua University (which is why I'm here)

Found via: Thatsbj.com classifieds. No snake-in-the-grass real estate agent.

Lease: No contract, just pay the bills and it's fine.

Came with: Standard kitchen appliances, TV and DVD player, couch and lazy chair, water cooler, desk and chair in my room, private air conditioning.

Landlord / Building management: Landlord doesn't speak a lick of English, but he's a reasonable guy. Annoys the hell out of my roommates when he calls at 9:00AM, but I have no problem since I'm up by 8:00

Notes: I had a real tough time finding a place in Wudaokou so cheap. I was taken around by a snaky agent and also looked at online classifieds and soon realized that the average price for an apartment around Wudaokou is about 1500rmb/month which will get you a pretty shitty apartment. But I was in luck when I found this place on the net. I was expecting it to be terrible, but it's actually quite comfortable. 1050rmb/month is by far the cheapest I've found, so I'm very happy with it.

[venture160]

Type of accommodation: Rented apartment, Building is a 3 year old 25/story apartment building.

Description: 65sm 1 bedroom/1 bathroom. Facing east with entire glass facade on the 20th floor, great views at night of the CBD.

Rent: 2500rmb/month paid every 3 months

Location: Shuangjing Qiao. 10 minutes walk to Guomao, 25 minute walk to where I work. 5 minute walk to Fulicheng shopping district and supermarket.

Found via: 我爱我家

Came with: everything but a DVD player.

Landlord / Building management: Good landlord who is a Beida professor. Reliable and gets things done

Notes: constant construction on the plot of land next to my building, lost of dust and noise pollution, hopefully will be done soon. Other than that, great place. For the past month due to the construction we haven't had hot water in the morning.

[roddy]

Here's my new one:

Location: Dalian, about 20 minutes by bus out of the center at the west gate of Dongcai - the complex behind / above the 好又多 Supermarket for those of you who know it.

Description: 82m2, 6th floor of 6. One reasonable size bedroom, one smaller which I'm using as an office / study (ha!), Good sized living and dining area with big sofa and dining table, smaller kitchen than my last place but still more than adequate (I've even started cooking sometimes). Nice balcony with a bit of a sea view, big enough to fit the dining table on I think. Being the top floor means high sloping ceilings which I like as it adds a bit of character and space, but also means only a dormer window in the second bedroom. Bathroom is nice, has a bath but the water pressure isn't great and you might be waiting a while for it to fill up. Fine for showers, but its no power shower.

Rent: 2600Y monthly, paid three monthly. Doing that odd 2-3-3-4 payment schedule which means the landlord always has a bit extra of your money in case you skip out of town. One month deposit. A couple of people have said it's a bit on the pricey side, and I have seen nicer and bigger apartments at the same or similar price. However, they have people living in them. Of the six or seven I looked at, this was by far the best. Plus the landlord will cover the winter heating fee, which makes quite a bit of difference.

Found via: Agent called 好旺角。 They seem to have offices all over Dalian, but I'm not sure if they all do rentals I dealt with four different agencies, and they were by far and away the most professional - was able to sit in the office looking at their listings and photographs on the computer eliminating places that weren't suitable, while the other agents were basically flicking through notebooks and unable to tell me how many rooms places had. Also extremely thorough on doing the inventory, checking meters, etc. They charge the landlord a month's fee, free to the renter.

Came with:

Pretty much everything furniture and appliance wise. Second bedroom is currently missing a bed, but I don't want one at the moment as it's an office / study (ha ha!). Only things I can think of that I had to get / need to get were a wireless router and a water dispenser.

Landlord: Nice young couple, friendly enough.

Notes: Good for public transport - bus routes and light rail are right outside the complex. Supermarket literally right underneath my apartment - down the stairs, pop out the door and into the entrance to the underground car park, through the car park and you're there. Very nice peaceful complex with lots of greenery. Sometimes I wish it had a lift though . . .