House Hunting Successes

Today's weather: High = 27 Low = 18
Sunny

The week of April 11-15 was a nutcase week. Basically, a flurry of items all came up at the same time during that week which required urgent attention and dealing with. Now, a month later, nearly all of them have been ticked off the list and I can finally breathe again.

One of the problems was my landlord calling me out of the blue and saying the rent would increase nearly 1000 RMB per month starting this June -- I always make it a point to rent from June to June. Frankly, the amount that she was asking for was unacceptable, given more research and facts about my current locations. Several attempts to negotiate failed. In the end, I pulled the classic negotiation breakdown stunt of saying screw this, I'm moving out. At the same time, I made a big fuss to the person in charge of these affairs at our school about why they aren't increasing the housing allowance if the rents are increasing. As it stands now, the allowance isn't enough to cover the rents and we're paying the difference out of pocket.

Another thing I'm not happy with is that all the teachers renting houses in Shanghai have done so with the help of estate agents connected with our secretary. As it turns out, part of the allowance is deducted every month to pay for some sort of 'receipt fee' or whatever she calls it, so I'm actually getting less than stated in the contract. I'm going to fight for a reimbursement of this 'fee' later in June, but I can only do one battle at a time here.

To make a long story short, I successfully lobbied for a raise in the housing allowance next year, and for that of my colleagues. To deal with the above problem of other hidden fees or things being deducted from the allowance, I decided to follow the tried and true adage, "If you want something done right, do it yourself."

In other words, I'm hunting for houses with friends and agents who have nothing to do with our school or any guanxi associated with that. I'm also picking areas farther away in order to get better deals that actually match what the housing allowance is, and I don't give a damn what people say (particularly locals) about this need to live close to work and this fear of living farther away.

Actually, this kind of mentality is partly to blame for making the downtown rents so expensive. Conversely, this kind of mentality also realizes the rental prices start dropping dramatically without actually going that far away from downtown.

I've been able to experience both extremes as it were. One extreme is really living too far way (I think 40-60km counts as that), and the other extreme is paying through the nose to live close to work.

A reasonable compromise, as mentioned previously here, is to live in an area I like to call the midburbs. Basically that area is between the middle and outer ring roads.

A motorcycle helps immensely with cutting down the commute times, and I've already done the run several times to get a feel for it. It is basically a 10km commute using a smooth road with few traffic lights that allows for nice cruising. The whole thing can be done anywhere from 15-25 minutes on a bike, and it's really not a big deal.

After looking around at several units, I basically found the ideal one today. It's in a quiet residential compound off the main street, facing a river and beautiful lights from an adjuacent apartment compound. Tons of green space. Right beside a subway station for rainy days. It is large and spacious, two bedroom (for guests) same as what I've got right now, but there is blissfully less noise. There is covered parking for the motorbikes, and interestingly enough, a foreign motorcycle enthusiast lives in the same unit. I saw his 250cc bike, and it's impressive. There are a lot more positive things to say about the place, and I'll post more details and pictures on my travel blog.

The price is certainly right. At 4500 RMB a month, the allowance will not only cover this, but I can also make a profit. There are also other options, including a 1 bedroom smaller place, also excellent, for only 3900 RMB a month. These are both two excellent places to choose from. Will most certainly be updating here, but to be honest, I've already started packing and am going to lunge for either of the two.