Does anyone know ANYBODY that lives out along Huqingping or Zhu Di town? Where exactly are these places and how far away is it to Hong Qiao where my husband will be working?

Our real estate agent sent us a list of places to review out in these two areas and said that they were a 15-20 min. drive to Hong qiao.

Are the above in Minghang or Changning or Qingpu district??? Or does it matter? We would like a house w/ garden but but worried about commute and schools. We have 2 kids under 4.

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Hi Niterz,
best would be to go and see yourself. You need to know where your kids will go to school. There are a couple of international schools in Qingpu district or Huqingping, so if your kids go there and your husband works in Hongqiao it might work out, but if your kids are enrolled in Gubei or downtown or even Pudong better forget about Huqingping.
Perhaps you go to see the places with your real estate agent at 5:30 pm - so that you hit the rush hour (then you know how much time will be necessary to go there by car). In general, traffic will increase in Shanghai - so if you need 20 minutes now, it might be 30 minutes next year, and 1 hour the year after ;-(

oh, there are also houses with gardens in Hongqiao and Gubei area!

and the price/performance ratio is quite the same!
It's actually amazing how cheap you can rent if your agent does not know your real budget

How true!!

Ooooh Angie, the agent already knows the max budget and she's come in at that for all places! Shoulda, woulda known...

I've asked her to show me cheaper places as well as those in Hongqiao area.

suggest you found out you have to pay tax on whatever amount so you are more limited!

I lived in Huqingping when I first moved to Shanghai 4 years ago. It is Qing pu district. As I recall, there were a few international schools out there. I have seen at least the Singaporean International school and American International school out there, but that was 4 years ago, things may have changed. There are some really nice and huge houses with garden, but not as convienient as Pudong in that part of town. I guess it is convienient in a way that it's not far from Gubei, around 15 min drive. Then of course, if you have the option, Gubei would be more ideal to live in.

well, you get yourself a new agent. It's anyway better to have 2 agents (or more) to do the house hunting for you. it's good to have some competition from time to time

so come to Xujing in Qingpu

most definitley second Angie's advice. use at least TWO agents so that you can pit them against each other. Its the way things work here so do what you can to get the best deal.

Several schools out the way you are talking about so really it may be the best thing to live close to their schools. Good luck.