RBIS was kind enough to offer their services to help the new teachers find apartments in the area. We all filled out questionnaires in regards to our housing preferences and they found agencies around Hong Qiao to show us their apartments. WHAT A NIGHTMARE! But before I get into that story, let me tell you some interesting facts about house hunting in Shanghai…
All apartments (or houses as locals call them) are owned by individual landlords, instead of one person owning an entire building or complex, which makes things a little bit more tricky.
The initial listed rent is negotiable. There are a variety of reasons why the rent would be negotiated – I will get into those reasons later.
Landlords list their apartment through agencies. The agencies then take on full responsibility of the apartment by showing it, handling all negotiations between the landlord and potential tenants, the set up and maintenance and upkeep after the apartment is rented out. For all of that, the agent only gets 35 percent on one month’s rent (which we pay).
Because they are all owned individually, two apartments right next door to each other could be as different as night and day based on how the landlord has keep up with them, decorated them and furnished them. Since all houses are furnished, it is not only looking for an actual apartment, but also for the content and the décor. The price of the apartment can be negotiated based on the upkeep and the value of the furniture. The more modern/western the furniture and décor, the higher the rent will be.
The price can also be negotiated to get additional things added or updated, such as TVs, DVD players, microwaves, dryers, or other small appliances. A tenant can ask to have furniture removed.
If an invoice/receipt (known as a fapiao) is needed, the tenant has to pay 5 percent of the rent as a tax for each fapiao. For example, our rent is 9,250 RMB monthly, but the housing allowance through the school is 5,000 RMB per person, so we need to get a fapiao for 5,000 RMB in order to get the full allowance, so each month we have to pay an additional 250 each (5 percent of 5,000) just to get a receipt, so that our school will give up money. We negotiated with our landlord so she pays for one fapiao and we pay for the other.
Well that is all I can think of for now… so let me tell you about our happy house hunting. Christina and I decided that we were going to live together on the first day. She is another teacher at my school from Grand Rapids, Michigan. She is a little bit older and has several years of experience teaching in the US. She is hilarious and we clicked really well when we met. We are enough alike to get along but enough different to do our own thing. So anyway, the HR people from our school set up some appointments with some agencies to look at apartments, so all eight teachers piled on to a bus and began driving around the city going in and out of buildings. I can’t even begin to tell you what a headache it was. Some people were looking at one bedroom apartments while some wanted three bedrooms. Some people wanted to be close to the school and others wanted to be farther out. Six of the girls had never even seen apartments in Shanghai, so for them it was more of a learning experience, but for me, I just wanted to find something and be done.
That first day, Christina and I found an apartment that we really loved. It was a three bedroom villa walking distance from our school. The walls were freshly painted (which is unusual), the furniture was all brand new and the rent was well within our budget. The second day we went out and looked at more apartments in a monsoon, but by the end of the day, we decided that we wanted to pursue the first apartment (which we called the “Orange Apartment” because it had an orange wall). On day three, we looked at the apartment one more time and made an offer.
I should probably tell you the process of negotiation… since neither of us speak Chinese and the landlord or agent speak English, we had Julie with us as our translator (someone from the HR department at RBIS). So we would make an offer – tell Julie – Julie would call the agent – the agent would call and discuss it over with the landlord – then the agent would call Julie back – tell her the counter offer – and Julie would discuss it with us.
We went back and forth all morning/afternoon. The listed rent was 8,300 RMB but we wanted to try and get it down to 8,000 or have the landlord pay for the two fapiao… but the landlord refused. In all honesty, the landlord was being a huge ass and was unwilling to budge on anything. Although we continued with negotiations, we also continued to look at other apartments with a different agency in the Gubei area. Apparently somewhere in there, Julie arranged a meeting between us and the landlord to sign a contract even though we were not satisfied with the negotiations yet, we agreed. Little did we know, “the meeting” was the end all. When a meeting is arranged, it is pretty much a done deal, all negotiations are settled and the meeting is the finale to sign the contract. Once we realized that, we decided to cancel the meeting to push it back (give us a little more time to look at a couple other apartments and continue negotiations). Well Julie got pissed and started yelling at Christina and I because she had spent so much time with negotiating and that she looked like an ass canceling “the meeting” and etc, etc.
At the time we really had no idea what we were doing, but we felt really bad that it had reflected poorly on us as being ungrateful for all of Julie’s hard work! The whole things turned out to be a huge disaster. We ended up canceling the meeting, even though the landlord told us that if we cancelled, we would not be getting the apartment. At the time, we were kind of confident that we would be able to find something else. Another one of our co-workers had called us to tell us about these beautiful apartments they looked at, so we hopped on the metro and headed into Gubei. After looking at the first apartment (which was not very nice) I began to panic! We just gave up a beautiful apartment that we both really liked, and we really had nothing else! What the hell had we done…. At this point it was a monsoon outside and we were running from building to building looking at unimpressive apartments. I was upset, frustrated and certain that we would not find another decent apartment.
The next morning I woke up with such a negative attitude. It was the weekend so we no longer had the assistance of our Chinese HR department and it was typhoon weather, again. Now let me tell you that I hate apartment hunting in the US, but after those three days of searching and negotiating, I was ready to pack up and head back home. Sometimes I just don’t understand China… actually, the majority of the time, I don’t understand China. I mean, it really just seems like they make everything so difficult – or at least a lot more difficult than it should be. Well anyway, I was convinced that it was going to be another horrible day and the weather was predicting terrible typhoon storms all day, however, when we walked outside, it was the most beautiful sunny Shanghai day.
Now you know that there are not many sunny days here in Shanghai, so when there is a perfectly blue sky with fluffy white clouds and sunshine, it just has to be a great day! Turns out, it did all work out and Christina and I found an absolutely beautiful apartment. It was well kept with brand new modern furniture – three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a ton of storage space. It had an updated kitchen with a full size fridge (something you don’t really see in Shanghai), flat screen TVs in every room and a washer/dryer combo. Well, needless to say, we fell in love, and even though we looked at six other apartments after, our hearts were set. That evening, we made an offer.
Of course, in any normal society, that would have been the end of it… we pick an apartment, pay the deposit, first month’s rent, sign the lease and move in – done. I wish! Turned out the landlord was in Malaysia, and she had some unsettled business with the previous renters, but she accepted our offer. We had discussed some technical stuff with our agent, and he agreed to all of our terms – unfortunately, he was promising something he couldn’t promise, and was not informing the landlord of the agreements that we made.
So let me break it down for you… our agent was a complete tool! It must have been his first day at life because he had absolutely no idea what he was doing. When we arranged our meeting with the landlord and agent to sign the contract, it was a disaster. You know, it is supposed to be a done deal at that point… all negotiations are settled, and the meeting is simply to sign the contract. The agent had told us all kinds of things, but the landlord had no idea, so we again, went back and forth negotiating with the landlord (who thankfully spoke English because we no longer had our translator with us), all the while, the agent sat in the corner texting away like a space cadet. I could have strangled him!
No to mention our financial situation… coming to China, we were told that the school was going to give us three months rent up front to get an apartment. Perfect – our landlord wanted two month’s rent deposit, plus first month’s rent. The only problem was that we were kicked out of our hotel on Monday, but we did not receive the money from the school until Wednesday night (it was very poorly planned). Naturally, no landlord wants to give someone the keys to their apartment if the deposit and rent have not been paid, but if we couldn’t move in on Sunday, we would be homeless for three days. Initially, our agent told us that it was no problem, but the landlord had no idea about that… and of course, it was a problem.
So to cut the story short (because this story is already plenty long enough), we spent 8 hours at the agency on Saturday afternoon discussing details with the landlord, sitting around waiting for her to settle her unfinished business and filling all of the fine details of the contract before we paid a small deposit up front (to hold her off until Wednesday) and got the keys to the apartment. I was seriously on edge all afternoon, because at any second, it could have gone wrong and fallen through. Once the keys were in my hand, I felt a HUGE bolder lift off my shoulders, like I was finally at peace – I had a home!
Our home is amazing and I completely love it, but I do not think that anything is worth the stress that we endured for an entire week. But I am happy that I am finally settled. I could not be more happy with our apartment (although I am really disappointed at how much of a douche our agent is because he is the one responsible for ‘servicing’ us for the next year). Our location is perfect… we are down a little side street in a very small and quaint neighborhood with a little pond and turtles out front. When I walk out of the compound, I can turn right and walk a block to Hong Mei Lu and find anything western/American that you could possibly imagine. On the other hand, if I turn left and walk a block, I am in the heart of China town, loaded with street vendors, Chinese markets and tons of delicious food. I am going to be very happy here, and I cannot wait for my family to come visit so I can show them around!
