My company will be moving us from the Midwest to Suzhou later this year. For the longest time I thought we'd go to Shanghai so I've spent most of my time researching here. Once the Suzhou location was announced I tried looking online but found info lacking - and certainly nothing compared to the community here. The forum for Suzhou expats have like a handful of posts only and some dates back years

If anyone can help point me in the right direction, here are some of the things I'll need to get info on:
- Schools: we've got a 3-year old & a 6-year old, both will need to go to school. I've only seen Dulwich & Singapore IS sites - are there no American schools in Suzhou?

- Housing: the availability of real estate sites are lacking. I saw a few, downloaded this huge 10MB PDF with housing offers but not sure when that was made or how dated the info is. Any sponsors here have business in Suzhou? I tried looking up real estate info here but couldn't find anything on lease rates/rent rates.

- Car for hire: I'll need to hire a car + driver and would like to understand how much it costs per month for a nice(r) car with driver, fully insured, etc. I've seen recommendation of just leasing a car and get an employee to drive - that's probably not a bad idea but I'd still like to understand the costs.

Contact the user: Zak102

VIC, (blush) PM me.. casualsurfer PM me too. I've been talking the talk & walking the walk for 7+ years only in Suzhou. Sorting out shqt from clay. Glad to assist another new expat here, and I don't charge.

Z.

I've been living in SZ for almost 2 years and can recommend these 3 web sites, which are not completely dead: http://www.suzhou-expat.com/, http://www.suzhouexpat.org/, www.whatsoninsuzhou.com.cn/
For the real estate can suggest google Full Home, Star regal or Maxxelli. For me best place to live is SIP and SSIS is probably the best you could find in here (according to my friends' comments who have kids of different ages). There is also Newton kindergarten for the little one. All the best here!

Really appreciate the info here. Will be contacting Zak shortly and checking out the links Lola provided.