House Hunters International

Our own version of the famous HGTV show…

While Doug did do a day and a half of house hunting back in May, it basically served to narrow down the neighborhoods in which we would want to live.  Even though it appears that expats are grouped together in a limited amount of places, there are seemingly infinite numbers of apartments, townhouses and single family “villas” located throughout the expat-friendly neighborhoods.  We basically honed in on a few neighborhoods that were close to the subway and the boy’s schools as well as coincidentally my company’s Shanghai office.  With that in mind, our relocation agent took us around again last week to a variety of residences in these specific neighborhoods.

Despite our requests to focus, they did sneak in a few places in neighborhoods that we were not interested in, basically in the far west side of the city, on the other side of the Hongqiao Airport.  Doug suggested that I take a look at them regardless, as it would serve to confirm his opinions, which it did.  These compounds were located at least 30 minutes from the boys’ schools, and were beyond the end of nearest subway line.   The facilities at these places were new, fancy, and spacious, but in my opinion, isolated from the real Shanghai (though there was a Carrefour nearby).   Also, it appeared that there were mostly westerners, which is OK, but I was thinking we would want a little diversity too.

One note on the word ‘compound’ is that it is applied to every development or apartment complex here.  I don’t like this word, but this is what they are called.  To me it sounds like some sort of fortified outpost in rural Idaho with armed guards at the ready, but it is only partially the case here.  Typically there are uniformed security guards at the entrance to every establishment (compound), but I have been able to explore many of them as a Westerner with a smile and a confident “nĭ hăo” during my morning runs. 

So back towards the city we went.  And the variety of places continued!  Many of the compounds have fanciful, western-sounding names – “Shanghai Racquet Club,” “Villa Riviera,” “Rancho Santa Fe,” and on and on, with the names prominently displayed in English.  As we went from place to place, I needed to take copious notes and photos, as they all started to blur together.  But soon, we were able to hone in on our likes and dislikes.  For example, places furnished by an individual owner were usually not to my taste, particularly those that were traditionally Asian in style, so the places that were developer furnished were more of interest.   Also, many of the owner-decorated places had pianos – I suppose to train their prodigy only child at an early age (and it would be convenient for us as well to continue piano lessons for middle son John). 

The boys would destroy this in one minute!

We quickly noted during our outing that brand new or newly-renovated is best.  Our agent brought us to a few places that were ten years old – in the US, no problem, right?  But here they were rather run down and in need of upgrading, which apparently seems to happen quite frequently, I guess to keep a good number of folks employed.  We debated the extra space of a villa vs. an apartment, but many of the villas in our preferred locations were either in bad shape or out of our price range, so the focus continued a second day on apartments.   We looked at many places that were really nice, but not kid-friendly (white carpets!), or just too fancy for our taste.  Several of these places were currently undergoing renovation, so it required some imagination to see what they would look like when complete.  We also had to do a quick read on the complex, i.e., would our family be comfortable there, were their kids, etc.   After looking at about 20 or so places, we narrowed it down to three that were within our price range:

• Windsor Court:  a duplex version of our current apartment and compound, with 5-6 bedrooms including a family room on the lower level.  Appealing because there is lots of space, it a serviced apartment with twice weekly housekeeping, and it is very convenient to Charles’ school and the Metro.
• Yanlord Riverside Garden:  a huge apartment complex on a different subway line, a little further from the boys’ schools, but with great facilities, including indoor and outdoor pools, kid playrooms, etc.
• China Garden:  kind of near Windsor Court, a rambling compound of townhouses; this particular one was undergoing renovation, but it was previously lived in by a Malaysian family and it had interesting woodworking and other details from when they were there.

 

The view from Yanlord Riverside Garden.

 

Similar to the process for the temporary apartment, we submitted these to our relocation guy, and he is in the process of negotiating with the landlord at Windsor Court and we will go from there.  I’ve come to learn not to count on anything here until it is in writing, so we’re extending our short-term lease and hoping for the best.