Hi,

Me and my wife are moving to Shanghai in Jan-10. My office will be near Minhang/Xuhui districts.

We will be looking for a modern apartment to rent with 2 Beds and 1 bath as a minimum. Can anyone advise what we might expect to pay? We have been looking on various websites and prices differ vastly.

We have been told (my wife is chinese) as soon as the landlord finds out a westerner is interested the price goes up! Safe to say I will let my wife do all the negotiations and move in later - would this be a problem ?

Any info or links you can provide will be greatly appreciated.

Regards
Major Tom

1) yes, there is an informal system of ripping off the foreigners in the real estate market
2) best to search on Chinese language sites as the difference on the same apt in an english site may be huge!
3) your wife needs to be a mean hard nosed biatch when negotiating, any sign of western weakness and its all over.

good luck.

Xinzhuang, in the junction of Minghang district and Xuhui district would be the ideal location for your family.

You can get a really nice 2br apartment for around 8000RMB in the Gubei area. It's right in between the Minhang and Xuhui districts. If you need any information regarding that particular area, just send me an email at taiyangrealty@gmail.com. I'd be glad to help out. -Kyle

chinapanda wrote:We have 8 years experiences of house hunting for expats in shanghai.
We would like to prepare the property list with pictures as soon as possible for your review firstly.
You also can visit our website at : www.shmaxproperty.com, there are a lot of nice houses available now.
Hope you enjoy the life in Shanghai.
Look forward to hearing your requirements at info@shmaxproperty.com.

wow the op sure is lucky you saw this post...

MT

I think you can PM Adrienne for help, she is a relocation expert in Shanghai.

April

MajorTom wrote:We have been told (my wife is chinese) as soon as the landlord finds out a westerner is interested the price goes up! Safe to say I will let my wife do all the negotiations and move in later - would this be a problem ?

Any info or links you can provide will be greatly appreciated.

Regards
Major Tom

MorTom

Glad to hear your wife is Chinese, coz that save a lot of trouble in negotiating with the landlord.

April

Hi , MajorTom

Xujiahui is very good




uote="MajorTom"]Hi,

Me and my wife are moving to Shanghai in Jan-10. My office will be near Minhang/Xuhui districts.

We will be looking for a modern apartment to rent with 2 Beds and 1 bath as a minimum. Can anyone advise what we might expect to pay? We have been looking on various websites and prices differ vastly.

We have been told (my wife is chinese) as soon as the landlord finds out a westerner is interested the price goes up! Safe to say I will let my wife do all the negotiations and move in later - would this be a problem ?

Any info or links you can provide will be greatly appreciated.

Regards
Major Tom[/quote]

Hi Major Tom,

My wife and I live in Yanlord Riverside Gardens on Tianshan Lu, it's probably about a 20-30 min drive in traffic from Minghang, though Minghang is a big district.

Complex is good with some open spaces and grass, also got a driving range, snooker table, gym, tennis, table tennis, badminton, indoor and outdoor pool (very nice and big but only open for 3 months during the summer), basketball court, small shop on site selling essentials, there is also a bank just across the road in the complex called Oasis Riveria.

We have a 3 bed 185m2 apartment with 2 bathrooms, it's over 20,000rmb per month, but my company pays, they do do smaller apartments for cheaper.

I would use an agent if I was you, I used Ark and they are OK, but not great, Adrienne seems to get a lot of positives said about her, but I've never used her.

Drop me a PM once you've got settled if you fancy a beer.

Cheers, Jase

If you play well, you can get a fair price on your own. Recently, i advise one of my foreign clients in buying a villa in Xijiao Garden, Minhang, and I witnessed his astuteness in bargaining in the whole process. He would entrust more than one real estate agents to find target properties and in that way, he would play between those agents and tried to cut down the price. Of course, he was definitely annoyed by those agents who often kept sending him messages. : )

The most dramatic part is to cut the agent commission by half. That poor agent is not good at English communication and made a small mistake, and my client simply flared up and pretended to stop the deal. The agent is worried about losing the deal at a time when he seemed to be able to pocket RMB 90,000 soon. Meanwhile, I tried to pursade the agent to cut his commission so as to prevent the client from leaving. I know my client was not to leave at all though he had went to his car and was to start the engine since he winked at me. Funny. Finally, given the bearish market, the agent realized that it was better than none. Then we struck the deal.

I know my client, as a gentlement, would not ask for reduction of the commission directly but at that moment, i know that is a chance to win something for my client.

So, foreign people need to learn to play a little trick, not really bad tricks.