Please! HELP!! can't find an apartment

[LVchineseforum]

Hi!

My friend and I are here in Beijing to study mandarin. We've been trying to find us an 2br apartment without any luck. Will stay here until end of November or December.

I've looked through craigslist, beijingrent.com and classified but there are only adds own by agents which means we have to pay the agent a lot of money too.

Is there ANYBODY who has a CLEAN apartment who'd like to rent it to us??? We are two very easygoing girls who will take good care of your apartment.

Please don't hesitate to reply if you've got any idea to help us!!

//Linda

[roddy]

How much help can people give when you don't give a location or budget?

Renting an apartment for four months isn't very realistic - surely that's too short a lease for landlords in any city?

[marco-polo]

Have you tried TheBeijinger.com classifieds? Here is a link to 2 bedroom apartments in the Wudaokou area: http://www.thebeijinger.com/classifieds/housing/Apartments-for-Rent/2br/Areas/Wudaokou

I wonder, given the length of your stay, if you'd have better luck trying to move into two rooms in an apartment that's already been rented out to some people? I read somewhere that there is a noticeboard in Tsingua where people post roommate ads.

Disclaimer: I'm leaving for Beijing in a couple of weeks. What I've posted above is just the fruits of my Internet research.

[Xiwang]

Last school year, I stayed at the Wen Cheng Jie Zuo Apartments located at 18 Linda Bei Lu in the Haidian District. It's located next to (and north of) the Forestry University and is about a 15 minute walk to BLCU.

I don't remember exactly the going rate for rents there but it didn't sound too bad when my friends told me what they paid. (I went to school through China Study Abroad so I don't know how much CSA paid for my monthly rent.) One of my friends had no trouble renting an extra furnished apartment there for a month when her parents came to visit her in Beijing. She arranged it directly using the building's rental office.

The two and three bedroom apartments are fairly large. Here are some pictures:

http://www.chinastudyabroad.org/luxuryapt.aspx

The phone number I have for the building's Customer Service Center is 82367008. If that's not the right number, I 'm sure they can give you the number of the rental office, which is located in Building C.

Some of my classmates also lived at the Furunjia Apartments, which is a large complex located at the intersection of Qinghua Dong Lu and Xueyuan Lu (located diagonally from BLCU). Unfortunately, I don't have any contact information. One classmate told me that she did use an agent for her apartment there.

[XiaoBin]

Most apartments are found through agents. The regular fee is 1 months rent. I think the going rate for a 2 bedroom at furun will be around 4000-5000RMB. You can try to go to the little conviniant store in Furun and ask them (across of building 3). There should be a small office around in the complex. You can also try to check the boards at lavita and 2nd floor conference center (BLCU). Lots of ppl posting apartments there.

I think the minimum lease will be 6 months, but you'll have to talk to the landlord about that.

[Erbse]

http://bj.58.com/ (some native speaker should guide you from here, I got an wonderful deal in the middle of Shanghai from this site)