Hi There. i am moving to Shanghai with my partner and two young children, and need to find a place to live. i am looking for somewhere preferably within an english speaking expat community where my wife can easily intergrate with other mothers and my kids can attend nurseries and pre school. I realise a lot of Shanghai is built up areas but some open space would be nice!. My office will be in Pudong and this is where we would ideally like to live, close to other expat families. Could someone give me an idea of areas/compounds and what price i would expect to pay for a 3 bed apartment or house?. your comments are extremely welcome!.i am visiting Shanghai next week and would love to know where to start looking. Thanks. Darren

Do you know where in Pudong your office will be? If it is in Lujiazui, you'll want to visit compounds like Skyline, Yanlord Gardens, Shimao Riviera, and Tomson. These are all apartment building compounds that have many expat families with young children. Personally I live in Yanlord Gardens with my husband and young daughter, and I love it - I think it is a great place to be for many reasons one of which is that although it is in a very 'urban' area with all the benefits of city life, the campus itself is very green and leafy with tons of space for kids to play ball, ride bikes, skate, run around doing general kid stuff, etc. The other compounds I have mentioned are all also very good and each has different things going for them as well. This is however an expensive area in which to live so depending on what you consider 'essential' in terms of space and in-home amenities, prices for a 3 bed will run you anywhere from about 20,000/mo to, well, the sky's the limit really.

found out that my office will be on Shangcheng Rd??. Is this nearer century park?. not sure.

Search for Adrienne and PM her or look at her posts. she is the resident real estate guru-accurate and up-to-date.

Shangcheng Road is Lujiazui-ish so Klick's advice should sort you out.