We’ve been looking for a better place to live. According to school, I should be able to have a “nice, clean, furnished townhome with club fees and utilities included”. It’s looking like we are going to have to top-up our housing allowance by $300-400 to get something that isn’t nasty. There’s also a layer of complexity in the school’s contract where the owner isn’t paid a damage deposit but is rather promised to be compensated by the school (note that it is a common practice for a Beijing landlord to pocket the deposit and find a minute cosmetic issue as a reason for keeping it…they pay the realtor commission with it). This has caused many deals to collapse and has been the cause of heartache amongst teachers and staff here.
Finding a good realtor is really tough. They usually receive the equivalent of 1 months rent as compensation from the landlord so there is never any motivation to negotiate for a good price. We’ve been through 4 realtors so far. The first one, I fired before we met her due to some bad press and a neighbor who recommended someone else named Maria. Well, Maria was great and genuinely seemed to work on our behalf but decided to go back to school. Our second person was Sally who Maria passed our information to. She showed us a few townhouses and we even found one to bid on. Well, after the negotiations started, Sally ended up in the hospital and passed us off to Betty. The landlord didn’t want to work the same way most landlords work - collect 1 check, and pay the club, cable, internet, utilities, taxes etc. This landlord was “too busy” and wanted us to go to the tax office each month (it’s not like going to the store…this is a Chinese government office). So despite the fact that the townhouse was great (including widescreen home theater), I told Betty that there are 2 ways to make this work…”1. he accepts the standard contract. or 2. you can provide a management service for him and manage this like our contract stipulates”.
So tomorrow we have a meeting with 2 new realtors from 2 different companies at 2 different times. This isn’t unethical because these realtors only show their own inventory…not others. Until then, we are pretty comfortable in our serviced apartment. We just have no storage.
I have purposely not dwelled on the nitpicky issues we’ve dealt with here in China. I won’t lie…it’s not an easy place to live. By western standards, these issues could seem huge…but the beauty of this whole experience is that we’ve learned roll along with adversity. We’ve developed a better appreciation for the things that really matter.
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