Tonight was a lot of fun checking out various neighorhoods in the midburbs, which basically means between the inner and outer ring roads in Shanghai, specifically around the Jinjiang Park amusement park area. There are a lot of good deals to be found, all within the price range as indicated by the company's housing allowance.
In an ideal world, the company would give allowances to match the downtown rents which run anywhere between 6000 to 10,000 RMB a month for a simple two bedroom spacious apartment. Prices can obviously go way higher than that without having to look very hard. Rents can also go lower by choosing smaller places, i.e. 1 bedroom, older housing complexes, and far from a subway station. In this sense, it would be possible to rent a place within the given allowance, but life wouldn't be very fun after school in these kind of conditions -- especially when desiring to just chill out or have guests over.
Let's face it, downtown Shanghai is extremely crowded as evidenced by the population density stats. Rents are going to be expensive, and it's a sustainability problem that the local government is only too well aware of. It wouldn't be fair to expect a company to fully subsidize this kind of rent, as it's actually 3-4 times that of what they'd pay in another city!
For example, rents in Wuhan are only 1500-2000 RMB for a similar type of downtown place that I'm living in right now.
Another option is to keep an expensive place downtown and pay the difference out of pocket. Sounds good in theory, but the main problem is inflation. Rents are going up, as well as prices in general. Salary and allowance increases aren't keeping pace with inflation, and if I keep hanging in downtown for the long term, I'll end up losing out. If they can jack up my rent by more than 10% this year, then who's to say they won't just keep doing that year after year.
So it's really looking like a move out to the midburbs here. I want to keep my comfort and spacious apartment to kick back in after work and just chill. Having done a years worth of intense commuting, then two years worth of no commuting, I'm now ready for a compromise of around 30 minutes, 45 minutes tops.
While on a motorcycle cruise tonight to the main area near the Lianhua Rd subway station, I passed by a half-dozen or so other suitable apartment complexes along the way. I stopped off at each one, checked prices, chatting with the agents, asked questions, and collected business cards. This is where a little bit of Chinese speaking comes in most handy!
Actually it turns out I'm scouting places much too early, as the agents say it's best to show up 10-15 days in advance of wanting a place before securing any deals. Today was more or less a price checking run and it was very pleasing. The rents were all rather consistent, between 4000-4500 RMB which could even allow me to make some profit on the allowance!
The interesting thing was that the furthest place out was actually more expensive than the places along the way, given the whole neighorhood near Lianhua Lu is upscale, has a Carrefour, a 7-11, several Starbucks, the construction is all brand new, it's quiet, and there is a subway station within 2 minutes walking distance. I know a few people in the area also. Best of all, this location would make me eligible to register for a suburban motorcycle license plate next year. If the weather is cold or guests are over, the subway alternative is a few stops to Shanghai Stadium along Line #1, then a transfer to Line #4 to head to work. It would take anywhere from 30-40 minutes doing it this way.
I'm most probably going for the Lianhua option. The other places along the way looked nice, but they didn't have much in terms of neighorhood. Being far from subway stations also, it would make for semi-isolation and cause problems for guests who wanted to stay, even the intrepid type who would find the overall surrounding areas to be quite drab. If guests wanted to stay over, the Lianhua option would be nicer, in the sense that they could just hop on Line #1 and hop off at People's Square within 30 minutes tops to enjoy themselves. Or they could hop off at Xu Jia Hui within 15 minutes.
Actually the more I think about it, this is even better than my current arrangement. To get to line #1 right now takes about 15-20 minutes of walking through a maze before actually getting on the subway. If you consider door-to-door, it's almost 45 minutes before reaching People's Square. When guests stayed over previously, I had to hold them by the hand for the simple fact that it was too complicated to get around. No nearby subway, scarce taxis, and no real shops or hangout places around, just a bunch of furniture stores.
The real benefit of the motorcycle is right now when I can eliminate the wasted time of walking to the subway and get to work 5-10 minutes. In this potential new location, the bike would still be good, but the subway would also be convenient so it makes for more choices. We'll just have to see here.
One thing I'm rather teed off about here is that how the landlord can justify the rent increase she wants, because it isn't close to a subway station. Anyways, I'm not digging my heels on this one. Moving out may be the best option after all.
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