Chinese Apartment Move-In Sticker Shock!

[Raoul Duke]

We seem to have a number of new friends in process of moving to China, so for them here is a bit on the finances of leasing an apartment. I've also a bumped an old thread on apartments to the top for your reading cornvenience.

Note that if you have a school-provided apartment, you won't have to deal with any of the items below. On the other hand, you will be dependent upon a Chinese school owner for your housing. You'll also have to live with their choice of apartments. I'd wager most of us begin our time in China with a school apartment, but if you stay around a while chances are good you will eventually want your own place.

Move-in can be very pricey in China. Many landlords will want 3-12 months of rent, 1-2 months of rent as a deposit...plus the broker fee if you used a broker. (Broker fees range from 35-100% of rent in various cities) Sometimes schools will help you with this (at least as a loan) but not all will. Many landlords will come down to 1-2 months rent and 1 month deposit...again plus broker fee if applicable. There are many variables but be prepared to lay down US $600-1000 move-in cost for a 2000-RMB-per-month apartment if you finance it all yourself.

If a landlord won't work with you a bit, might take that as a signal to walk away. Some Chinese landlords are SERIOUS dicks. (Some are nice, too..) I recommend that you pay rent as little in advance as possible...lowers move-in cost, and also leaves you a lever to make sure de lanlode will do needed maintenance and repair. This may seem hard to believe, but there is precedent for landlords here to forget who you are....until the next payday rolls around.

Make it clear to the landlord- with witnesses and hopefully in writing- that you will be responsible for anything you break, but the landlord is responsible for failure due to age and/or wear. I've had them try to stick me with replacing 5-year-old appliances.

[Lotus Eater]

I have had no experience at all in renting an apartment. Zero advice to give. But all I can say is if you are living in institution provided accommodation - it can also be really good.

Here if I ask for anything to be fixed it is a MINUTES time frame until they check it!! Small stuff - new fluros, more gas, anything that is easy is done immediately. Anything that is harder - checked immediately and then done as soon as humanly possible. These guys are good.

recently one of the foreign students went missing - a Japanese student so you can imagine their concern. Critical incident briefs flying every where. But they wre able to then call in the video camera stuff of the entrances and exits from our doorway to see if she had left with anyone or not. Nice to know in an emergency that they can access this stuff- although it did take them a day to be able to get it. Someone will evenutally notice that I have been kidnbapped!!

So I am looked after and sort of safe, but not actually spied on here.

Don't get too stirred up about living in campus accommodation if that is part of your deal - it can work out well.

[Raoul Duke]

Agreed. Better schools will feature better accomodations! Sometimes it works out.

[gengrant]

yeah, what Raoul said: 2 months rent as deposit, first month's rent upfront, and we paid 50% of broker fee (landlord paid other 50%)...so for a 3300/month place, we paid 9900 plus 1750 broker fee.

but we ALSO got the nicest landlords you could ever imagine...came over at a moment's notice to fix anything (nothing major, but he fixed it to our liking anyway); even took us out for a day at the seashore, lunch at a nice seafood restaurant, and then shopping for 2-3 hours in Dongmen! Helped us arrange water delivery, upgraded our cable, got us broadband internet, set up all of our utilities into one monthly bill...this guy (and his wife) ARE awesome!

so, be aware that you will pay a big chunk o'cash up front, and like Raoul said, get everything in writing and get witnesses/translations whenever possible. you may or may not get landlords like mine!

[con's fly is open]

If you do get your own place, INSIST that the school send someone with you to help negotiate, ask questions, etc. It's not just sleazebags you have to worry about.

Case in point: when I took my apartment I had a ton of problems. The electricity flickered, and once died for over a week. I had to buy a flashlight. I later discovered that there was a second fusebox downstairs, and apparently someone finally flipped mine back on while checking his own. Eventually the landlord figured out my upstairs one was pooched and replaced it.

Lately I've had neighbour complaints about my loud A/C unit. Coming from a cold, dry climate, I don't know what constitues loud, so I just learned to live with it; my neighbours, on the other hand, came on to (I found out later) complain, but were thwarted my my infinitessimal Putonghua. They called the landlord, who called my school, who told me of the problem, and we set a time to check it.

They came by, I turned it on... a there was purring silence. They went home; 20 minutes later it got loud again, I guess.

This cartoon is still going on. It's not really the landlord's fault, not really mine, but there you go: a comedy of errors. TIFC: prepare to be vexed.

[woza17]

Another thing that I would like to add, make sure that the owner is allowed to rent the apartment to foreigners. At our last apartment this was not the case and the PSB visited us several times and asked us to leave, we explained that we had bought an apartment and would be moving out and they wre happy with that

[acjade]

This thread has been great. Thanx everybody. I feel equipped to begin the search although in truth the uncle will cut to the chase. God I love Chinese families.

[acjade]

The Uncle is going to borrow a van to help me move, bless him. The cousins 'brother and sister' will help load it all up and unpack.

I've started on the wardrobe in the bedroom but God help me with the sitting room and the kitchen. What to do? What to do? I wish I could cultivate the art of living simply.

Big breath. I guess the real problem is what do I pack it all into?

[woza17]

AJ i feel for you darling, it's a buggere getting hold of cardboard boxes now what I did was buy those big plastic boxes on wheels from the supermarket and they are great because you can store things or they fit inside each other ready for the next move

[acjade]

Thanx Woza, darlin'.

Movings a bugger. I don't know why I find it so hard when I've been doing it all my life. I ought to be so ZENNED by now.

Plastic boxes on wheels? I've seen plenty of plastic boxes but they come in wheels?

[Lotus Eater]

Ren Ren Le and Lotus Supercentre both have the boxes on wheels as does Metro. Other option is also to buy boxes from the local post office.

Me - I have this fantasy of moving by the 3 wheel bicycles. But it would have to be a cavalcade of them!! With me sitting on the top of one of them.

[gengrant]

LE, you've got so much guanxi, now you have your own supercenter? wow...

i've gotta work on my guanxi harder!

[Ruth]

I watched a move in progress from my window. It was amazing how much stuff they piled onto one of those three-wheeled bikes with cart in front. Actually it took two of them. The guy couldn't see to drive. Two women walked alongside to hold the pile on and direct.

I'm gonna need a transport truck if ever moving day arrives. I've moved a lot, too, and experience has taught me to hang onto my cardboard boxes. They are currently taking up a lot of space in my drying room.

[Non-Dave]

I moved to a new apartment about 2 weeks ago. I thought I did a good job preparing my assistant for the fact that we would need a truck. Okay, okay, don't worry!
The day arrived and with it about 8 removal engineers stomped their muddy boots into my place and started taking everything to the truck.
If it was someone else's treasured possessions getting the treatment it would have been an amusing thing to watch. These guys were like the 3 Stooges Chinese cousins and had a hard time figuring out how to pick things up, long philosophical discussions about who should stand where and whose turn it was. Some just sat, smoked and watched.

Anyway towards then end I went out to check how the loading was progressing on the truck. What truck? A tractor with a small open trailer and a trike with a tray. They didn't seem to think the falling snow was a problem, so I rescued as many valuables as I could carry and put them into a taxi.

Most of the stuff made it to the new place intact, although somewhat frozen, so I should probably just relax and let the experts do what they do the way they do it here.

Plastic boxes (with or without wheels) are a great idea! Being drunk/stoned while they move things probably helps too!

[Lotus Eater]

tall said:

LE, you've got so much guanxi, now you have your own supercenter? wow...

i've gotta work on my guanxi harder!

Well these things just sorta happen. I never ask, but .....

I too have a pile of flattened boxes hiding under my spare bed. And I collect Metro bags as well - they are always useful. Was over at my tailors the other day with a Metro bag full fo fabric and odds and ends for her to fix fore me. She looked at the bag and decided to make it more useful for me - stitched additonal velcro fasteners to the sides opposite where the store created them - so now my bag can close N-S as well as E-W. Way more secure for me she decided.

If you don't have a Metro, the bags are industrial strength blue plastic and cost 5Y each - sold at the Metro stores to carry groceries in. A decent size for carting both groceries and other dongxi.

[Mr Nobody]

We have used movers. Indeed it looks roughshod, but it works.


However, the wife packed one special bag for me to take the special things - cameras, papers, money, fragile stuff, etc - which I took by taxi to open up and prepare the new flat.

Apparently theft is fairly common. Nothing of ours went missing, though.

[Raoul Duke]

Yah,
never had theft problems with movers in China. Had things broken, and I think I've had a few things that didn't get packed (I suspect one ayi once decided I had too many CDs) but no theft.

I also have one big bag I carry myself. It has some fragiles (like my Saddam Hussein piggy bank), my few pathetic "valuables" (like my Wang ZhiZhi NBA Rookie Cards), and the things I'll need to live on until the unpacking gets on.

[cheekygal]

If you search for an apartment in China remember: the agents aren't supposed to charge you anything. They charge the landlord. If the agent tries to charge you - it is against the law.
There are 2 types of the aparments you can rent:
1. Rented out by landlord (you find it directly/through friends/through agencies and sign the contract with the landlord)
2. Subletted appartments (agencies rent them from landlords and you sign the contract with the agent)
Be sure to ask directly if apartment is being subletted or not. If the agent tells you "The landlord is out of town and we are his friends" - definitely the second one.

Besides checking if everything is in order - check your contract for management fee and heating to be included. A lot of new apartments have gas heating and it is costly. So ask that too.

I am writing based on personal experience where we faced case 2 with so-called friends. And we found out the truth when we had major water-pipes-breaking-all-at-once-and-flooding-us-and-neighbours case. Also, we didn't really check for heating part and ended up with gas heating (which we didnt use because apparently electricity in our compound costs less than gas so we used ACs for warming place up whole winter).

In Beijing normally it is 1 month rent for deposit and 3 months rent in advance. In case one you can agree on monthly payment. Some landlords are really nice: they would even pay your phone bill first and you just give the money back when you pay your rent. But normally they dont like to sign the contracts here for less than a year. If it is less than a year the payment could be higher.

Make sure your contract is in both English and Chinese or minimum English. Or if you sign the contract in Chinese - make sure you have a trusted person to translate for you.
Also, as an attachment, there should be a full list of goods that are in your appartment, measures for water/ meter and electricity (if you have a meter and don't use cards to fill up your electricity credit). They should even write how many keys are given to you.

Important detail of a contract is that the landlord has NO right whatsoever to enter your appartment without your permission or presence. We had a landlord opening the door while we were all in without any notice and walking in. He got hell of a yelling and had to appologize a lot.

[gengrant]

The norm in Shenzhen if you use an agent is that the landlord pays half the fee, renter pays other half...(the total fee is usually equal to one month's rent).

Haven't heard different...

[cheekygal]

The official law has changed. So they are actually cheating. Or else Shenzhen administration made its own law.

[gengrant]

probably a little of both...my guess...

[Non-Dave]

A very simple bit of protection is to take lots of pictures of the place before you move any of your stuff in, particularly of areas that are damaged or might be easily broken. Even better if you can put a date and time stamp on the picture. Better still if you can do it with the owner/agent (and get them in a picture or two).

And, of course, a list of everything that's in the place and the condition it's in. Spending half an hour doing this can save huge headaches, and pictures don't have to be translated.

Lesson 1, Day 1 (Queensland Police Academy) - Cover your own ass, no-one else will.