renting apartments

i have been helping to find apartments to rent for my colleagues for the coming year, and oh is it an interesting experience and insight into chinese culture. it also makes up for me missing so many of my chinese lessons!! (due to circumstances beyond my control, lest you think i'm skipping out on purpose!)

when you rent an apartment in china, at least in my city, most apartments come furnished completely. within a single building, every single apartment could be owned by a different landlord. so in looking for over 10 apartments that are needed for my colleagues, i have seen dozens of landlords and different apartments within the same apartment complex. HUGE apartment complex, i might add. i thought that my complex i live in now when i first came to china was huge. i was wrong. my complex now has 55 buildings varying from 6 to 11 floors each, 2 apartments on each floor. this complex we are looking at now has about 35 buildings, 35 floors each, with four apartments on each floor. you can do the math if you want (i've been doing way too many calculations lately related to rents and percentage of taxes and the average to fit into our budget...aahhh). anyway, it's a big complex, and the buildings are much taller. the complex is pretty impressive to look at from the outside.

the inside is quite interesting. the quality of apartments can vary widely, from "um...there's a hole in the door and the floor is cement..." to newly completely remodeled with plastic still on the beds and a refrigerator still in the box and fancy flowers surrounding the lightbulbs in the light fixture. fortunately this complex is quite new and somehow reasonably priced at the same time, which is why we chose it, so most of the apartments we have looked at have been of reasonable quality and many have been quite nice and we are excited about them (another reason we chose this complex).

so when it comes down to searching for apartments, we go through an agent. i arrive at the complex with our maintenance guy who can survey the appliances in the apartment (water heater, washer, electricity, plumbing, etc), a Chinese colleague who speaks both Chinese and English, and we meet an agent there who walks all over the complex with us, calling landlords as she goes and showing us apartments she got from her contact list. we work with two different agents because they have two different contacts.

when we find apartments we like, then we start the negotiating. they may tell us the rent is 3500 RMB (around 500 USD) and includes tax or does not include tax. we tell them we want an air conditioner in the living room and a wardrobe in one of the bedrooms because there is no closet and we want new covers on the couch cushions. then i sit there while my Chinese colleague talks to the landlord and the landlord talks back and the agent chimes in and our maintenance guy as well, and they all have this conversation that goes around and around. i can understand some of it. they discuss everything from who the tenants might be to who the company we work for is and that we are reputable and how foreigners will take care of their apartment (often chinese people really don't clean their apartments very well or take good care of it--chinese people know foreigners have higher standards...interesting). i can hear different prices being tossed around. 3000. 3300. 3100 not including tax. 3200 including tax... they even discuss how old i am. they discuss the lease start date. they discuss if it's ok to move stuff in before the lease start date. they discuss the furniture and appliances we want to have that are not already in the apartment. the discuss the landlord's family and the previous tenants and the history of the apartment. finally, my chinese colleague turns to me and tells me what was agreed upon. i tell her ok! or what about this? they talk some more....

it's so interesting because i can understand some of it, but not all. in the US if you wanted to rent an apartment, you would fill out an application and list your rental history and they would do a credit check and you would tell them what job you have...stuff like that. all on an application form. and the landlord would meet you when you saw the apartment and like you or not, and decide or not based on your application. here, you talk. there is nothing in writing until an actual contract, after all of this negotiating. you talk and convince them you are reputable, that you will pay the rent, that they want to have you as a tenant. being a foreigner, they probably already want us as tenants, which makes it interesting to begin with. then it just comes down to negotiating the price, if we can agree on the terms. we talk about all these things and agree, but still no contract has been signed! that is done through the agent after these negotiating talks. we had one apartment that we talked and talked and talked with the landlady and agreed on all the terms and she came way down on the price. we thought it was a done deal, the next day only to hear that the landlady's husband did not agree with the terms, everything we said was void, he only wanted the original price in his terms. needless to say, we did not rent that apartment.

anyway, being on my company's "housing committee" in china has been interesting! i'm kind of glad to be gone in xi'an this coming week and leave it in the capable hands of the rest of the committee. especially since the apartment i really liked and hope to have for myself is already basically secured (still no contract though!!!). hee hee. yes, i am moving!! i will live in this new apartment complex next year, starting in the fall. so pictures of my new living situation will be forthcoming in the future. but for now, off to xi'an for the next week with some colleagues and all of our students!