Apartment hunting near BCLU

[croyd]

Hi there,

I'll be hunting for a 1 bedroom apt near BCLU in early September. It seems like lots of agents charge half the monthly rent as a fee. Is this normal? If not, could anyone recommend any good agents? Also, anyone know of a good area to stay in? I have visited Fu Run Jia Yuan before but I think it's a bit expensive. I don't want to live too far from campus though.

Also are there any other fees I should be aware of when renting besides the monthly rental fee? i.e. management fees, heating....or are these usually included?

Thanks.

[doumeizhen]

Agents charging a months rent as their fee is pretty normal. Ours did but because the place was hard to rent (3 bedrooms) the landlord picked it up. I've not heard of this happening anywhere else.

Management fee, winter heating, utilities, internet, phone... those are all the things I can think of off the top of my head. Some might include activation fees for phone and internet, as well as modem cost.

You'll probably be asked to leave one months rent as a deposit.

[Jizzosh]

You shouldn't have to pay the real estate company shit. Their fee is payed by the landlord. I've never had to pay anyone but the landlord, and other than that, buy credits on power, gas, (water is taken out of the deposit before they return it to you), and internet/phone.

I've been here for over a year and a half, and I've never heard of anyone that had to pay their agent directly, so I would definitely see about that. Perhaps that's what they make you do when you're just going to be here for a short time, but I highly doubt that. I would imagine they're just trying to garner extra qian from as many parties as they can.. cheeky bitches.

Anyhow, check how much it would be per month (they'll charge you more because its less than a year, perhaps there is a deposit, (which you will get back, minus the water usage charge), and make sure you're not paying too much. Also, always check with more than one company (they all usually have the same listings anyhow, but sometimes one company has better info, or better support, and hopefully you'll get the full truth that way. It's worth the extra day or so in a hotel or hostel to save a couple thousand kuai.

Cheers, and come down to Lush for the Wednesday night pub quiz when you get into town!

[roddy]

You shouldn't have to pay the real estate company shit.

Varies. Tends to be at the cheaper end of the market the agent collects from the tenant, for more expensive places services to the tenant are free and the agent collects from the landlord - perhaps a reflection that it's harder to find cheap housing? And no doubt some agents will do their best to collect twice . . .

[Jonny Wang]

Roddy,

Actually my experience has been somewhat opposite of what you stated. In my first couple of years here (in Tianjin), when I was even poorer than I am now I was looking for pretty low-end housing (we're talking squatty potties, etc) and found that the local, local (non-branded) real estate agents would help me find an apartment for an upfront fee of about 50rmb. I could look at their listings for free, but if I wanted to start visiting places, they charged a 50rmb fee. But then when I signed a lease, there was no other agent's fee (I assume the landlord had to pay some fee). Now, maybe I was just getting ripped, but had this happen at multiple agencies, so I think it's normal. But anyway, there was no half-a-month's rent agent fee. These lower market agencies seem to be especially abundant near university campuses.

More recently though, when I searched for a nicer place, all of the real estate agents in the neighborhood we wanted to live in were branded companies. We ended up finding our apartment through a 21st Century branch. With them, the standard setup is landlord pays half a month's rent and renter pays half a month's rent. That's what we did, once we checked with other people and found that it is a pretty common arrangement. Of course, when it was time to resign the lease, we just did that between us and the landlord. No need to go to the agent again (and pay another fee). The nice thing about using a more up-market agent is that they seem to have standard lease forms that they help the two parties agree to and sign, and so give the clueless foreigner at least a small measure of protection.

As for other fees to watch out for, one I haven't seen mentioned above is rental tax. At least here in Tianjin, when someone rents their apartment out (only to foreigners maybe???) they are supposed to pay a tax equivalent to 5% of the rent to the police. The landlord goes with you to the PSB office in the neighborhood and registers you and pays the tax. In our setup, we offered to pay this for the landlord, because usually landlords want to skip this step and so avoid paying the tax. We wanted to be registered and pay the tax though, just to be more legal.

However, we only payed 6 months of tax even though we signed a 1yr lease. After 6 months I got a notice from the police saying it was time to pay the tax again. I went once to pay, but they were all sleeping after lunch and said I had to come back later, so I just never went back and paid it, and that was over a year ago no. No word from them again.

I think alot of people just avoid the registration and tax step, and I think it's perfectly safe to skip it, but to be technically legal, I think this step is supposed to happen.

Good luck renting!