Apartment Hunting in Beijing

After spending a week looking at dozens of apartments, my roommates and I settled on a large 3BR apartment in the MOMA at Dongzhimen. A big apartment complex whose occupants are reportedly 70% foreign, it's modern amenities is a sharp contrast to it's random location in a hutong in Beijing. It is an interesting blend of new and modern with old and traditional that serves as a reminder that I'm actually in Beijing. But rather ironic that I moved all the way to Beijing from NYC, and ended up living in a place called the MOMA. I definitely miss home!

There are a few major differences between apartment hunting here versus in New York City. Here, many of the real estate agents/brokers you use do not have their own private listings - it seems to be a shared thing. Thus, real estate agents compete with one another for business and many of them will try to show you the same apartments. In addition, the landlord is the one who ends up paying the fee (equivalent to one month's rent), not the renter, which is really nice. Apartments also come furnished. You can even request additional furniture and ask the landlord to change some of the furniture. All of this is negotiated prior to signing a lease. As a result, it took us 5 hours of negotiations and discussions before we were able to finalize our lease agreement and get the document signed. Ultimately, these differences make life as a renter so much easier in Beijing. The agents do much of the work, the landlord pays them and supplies you with furniture - all you have to do is show up. The only thing that's rather annoying is the fact that it is customary to pay a 1 month deposit and 3 months of rent upon signing. Good thing I have a savings account.

I spent last Saturday furniture shopping with my new landlord and one of my new roomates. We picked a couch and selected the fabrics to use. The couch, made to our specification, was delivered a few days later. Since we ordered several different things from different vendors, it has been a frustrating experience waiting for the deliveries. In China, punctuality does not seem to be important. In fact, the whole notion of time is somewhat disregarded. An appointment scheduled for 8am might very well become 6am without a warning and 7pm can become 2pm. Slowly, as furniture is delivered and replaced, the apartment is coming together. Can't wait until it's all set up.

Perhaps one of the most bewildering things as a renter is how electricity, gas and phone bills are paid. I don't really think people use personal checks and people don't receive bills in the mail either. Instead, you have to add value to a smart card by paying in advance at a bank and then sticking it into the meter to add credit it with units of electricity and gas. It's somewhat of a hassle since the lines at the bank are always a couple of hours long (when I went to set up my account, there were 119 people ahead of me according to the machine) but you can do it at some special automated machines too. It's an amazing business model for the electric, gas and phone companies. None of them will have cash flow problems since they are pre-paid, before their service is utilized. Even cell phones are pre-paid. You buy credit and then charge up your phone.

All foreign residents have to register themselves at the police station. I guess the Chinese government must really want to keep tabs on us. Need to do that this weekend.