Hello,

I am considering an apartment at Tomson Xing Guo that I saw recently. The apartment seems nice, but perhaps a little far away from things for walking.

Any thoughts or feedback on the apartment or area?

Thanks.

Hi johnsam. I am guessing this is the one in Hunan Rd. The properties there are investment properties so they are all of good quality. Some are better than others as the interiors are done by the owners. Management is good too. Many expats like the area which is called the French Concession. It has lots of historical places as well as plenty of entertainment areas but they are spread out. There are international and local supermarkets in the area as well as fruit and vegetable markets. I think the one on Wulumuqi Rd is great.

Hope this helps a little. Am sure others will pitch in as well.

So that you are familiar with the practices here in real estate for when you are negotiating, please have a look at our Advice on Leasing pages. It may be of help to you.

All the best!

Adrienne

Used to live very close this place. Great area, neighborhood is pretty quiet. Nearby Huashan rd at such is busy. This place is not far from anything in my mind. Only negative thing is getting taxi in morning.

We rented quite a few units in the Tomson, it's a great place in terms of location and quiteness.

There are small units available, like the duplexes in the front buildings (1 to 4) that you can get from around 22k to 28k.
The middle buildings, 5 and 6 are larger, but have big terraces and gardens.
All of the units in building 5 and 6 are very nicely renonvated.

There are nice triplex units in the buildings 7 to 10, the ground floors are more spacious, but they sometimes only have 2 real bedrooms as they often left the 2nd bedroom open as a study.
The Living room is more spacious than the 3 and 4th and 5th floor triplexes that have the terrace.
The Terrace is more useful but it's usually entered through the master bedroom which may get weird for entertaining.
The Ground Floor ones have the garden from the 2nd basement living room.

As Adrienne said, depends on landlord but most of the units are quite nice.
Make sure the ground floor ones have no leaks though.

The larger units are alot more pricey......around 35 to 45k. Half of these were bought as investment properties and half of them are owner occupier. As they were sold off as concrete shells (mao pei) you can get a few poor designs that are more suited to Asians than westerners like the kitchen in the basement (that is because the maid will be cooking). These designs don't suit westerners well as our lifestyles differ. I sure wouldn't want to cook in a basement.

Having said that, they aren't all poorly done and we have rented out some lovely units there. It is worth a look through as many as possible as they all differ greatly.

Adrienne