Tag: taiwan

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Tips for Apartment Hunting in Taipei

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Now that we have a bit of experience apartment hunting in Taipei, we wanted to share some tips for those who might be in our shoes.

Tip 1: Rent.591.com.tw is the most popular website in Taiwan to search for apartments. You can filter by city, district, number of bedrooms, price, parking, and so much more. There is no English version of the site, but you can use Google to translate the text into English.

I’ve seen people use dd-room.com as well, but 591 is by far the most popular website for apartment listings.


Tip 2: If Chinese is not your native language, it’s best to bring a Taiwanese friend with you to view apartments and negotiate with the landlord. But if you’re like us and don’t have any close friends or family in Taiwan 😅, then work with a real estate agency that caters to expats. We worked with Elegant Realty and UR House (and ultimately found a place with UR House). There is a one-time fee of a half-month’s rent when working with agents.

Note that agencies will typically only show you apartment listings from their inventory. So, you’d have to do your own research on rent.591.com.tw if you want to explore other options.

Tip 3. On top of rent, pay attention to the monthly management fee on the listing. Management fees include general maintenance of the building and security. They can be exorbitant, but can also be negotiable with the landlord.

Tip 4. Reduce the number of pings listed by approximately 30% to get the actual living space. This is because listings often add in common areas like hallways, lobbies, etc. into the total number of pings.

Tip 5: Look for an apartment that uses natural gas or piped propane. Some of the older buildings still use natural gas cans, which means you’ll be taking cold showers if they run out and until you get them replaced.

Tip 6. Get an apartment with an individual electricity meter. If it’s a shared meter, there’s no control over how much you pay per month as the meter is shared by everyone in the building.

Tip 7. If you don’t have a car or scooter, make sure the apartment is close to public transportation (either MRT or bus). Taipei is a huge city, so you’ll need access to public transportation to get around.

Tip 8. This may not be applicable to everyone, but having an apartment with natural light was important to us. Look at whether there is ample light in the living areas. Are there bars over the windows? Are the windows frosted?

Tip 9. As mentioned in my previous post, everything is negotiable in Taiwan. You can negotiate rent, management fees, furniture, etc. I’ve also heard people negotiating for the landlord to pay for the internet and cable fees. Of course, this is dependent on whether the apartment is highly sought after.

Tip 10. This is a great, and much more exhaustive guide for foreigners looking for an apartment in Taiwan: https://www.foreignersintaiwan.com/blog-370963385326684/taiwan-apartment-rental-guide We referenced this guide many times during our apartment hunt.

If I think of any more tips, I’ll add it to this post!

Ramblings

Apartment Hunting in Taipei: Success

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Time was ticking. We realized we had to compromise on some things. First, we increased our budget to find an apartment that was more suitable to our tastes. We started looking for apartments that were ~50 pings after learning that the advertised number of pings is often inflated. We expanded our search to not only Da’an but Songshan and Xinyi districts. Our main goal was to find an apartment with good natural light and within a school’s service district. We didn’t even care whether the apartment was furnished, or near the MRT, or what floor it was on.

Then one day, we saw an apartment in Xinyi district. Xinyi is the financial district of Taipei, with many skyscrapers including Taipei 101, upscale malls and eateries, and newer apartment buildings. This particular apartment is within 4 minutes walking distance to a school that had availability, and the landlord was fine with us using the address for school. The apartment came with only a couple pieces of furniture, but we were willing to overlook it. We immediately reached out to the agent to express our interest.

The interesting thing about Taiwan is that almost everything can be negotiated, including rent. Our agent told us to outline all our demands and he can help us negotiate with the landlord. We asked for a ~12% reduction in rent, including all management and garbage fees. (Most apartments have an monthly management fee on top of your rent. This fee is to pay for things like security and general maintenance of the building.)

Our agent suggested that we ask for furniture as well, but that we’d need to sign a 2-year lease. The commitment-phobe in me was a little hesitant, but I also didn’t want to go through this whole process again in a year. So we agreed and waited for the landlord’s response.

We waited about a day (which felt like an eternity!) but finally, we heard back from the landlord. She agreed to all terms (hurray!!) except we’d have to pay for the garbage fees, which was pretty nominal anyway (about $30/month).

There were a few hiccups before we signed the contract – e.g., making sure we had enough cash for the deposit and first month’s rent; the landlord kept changing the time and place for the contract signing, which made Baba suspicious; realizing at the last minute that one room at no door 😆, so we had to negotiate with the landlord; getting the landlord to purchase the furniture in time for our move-in.

But ultimately, we signed the contract and finally got the keys to our apartment in Taipei! 🎊 This was a HUGE relief because the check-out date for our Airbnb was coming up, and we can now register for the boys’ school. Woo hoo!

As of writing, we’ve been living in this apartment for about 3 weeks. It’s not perfect – our refrigerator is on the balcony and we’re on the second floor so it’s more prone to getting bugs. 😣 But, we are close to the boys’ school, one short block from the Xinyi Sports Center which has a pool!, close to the MRT and buses, and walking distance to markets and convenience stores. I also like that on one side, there is Taipei 101 with all its fancy shopping and restaurants, but on the other side of our apartment, you can find numerous cheap eats, or 小吃.

The apartment hunt in Taiwan was a roller coaster ride and such an interesting learning experience. In the end, I’m incredibly grateful that we found a great place to live in such a short period of time. Everything worked out in our favor (so far). But I’m even more grateful to have a partner in crime, Baba, to go on these crazy adventures with me! 😘

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Apartment Hunting in Taipei: Apartment Features

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While apartment hunting in Taiwan, we came across many interesting apartment features. I hesitate to say “weird” because it’s likely we’re just not used to the style of living here.

Pings. I had mentioned in an earlier post that Taiwan uses pings 坪 as a measurement of floor space. One ping is equivalent to about 35.6 square feet. We searched for apartments between 25-30 pings, or 890-1067 square feet, which is about the same size as our old apartment in San Francisco. Not asking for too much, right?

Well, this brings me back to the theme of “expectations vs. reality” when it comes to apartment hunting in Taiwan. An apartment listing that advertises 30 pings does not mean the actual living space is 30 pings. The 30 pings include common areas like hallways, lobby area, stairwells. So you can imagine our surprise when we showed up to an apartment thinking it was 30 pings and saw a teeny tiny apartment. Apparently, the rule of thumb is to reduce the advertised number of pings by ~30% to get the actual living space.

Old buildings. Taipei is an old city, so many of its buildings are old. We wanted to live in Da’an for its central location but many of available apartments were very dated. Aside from aesthetics, older buildings may not be up to code to withstand earthquakes or fires.

Natural light. Having a good amount of natural light in the apartment was an important factor to us. Unfortunately, this wasn’t super easy to find in Taipei. A lot of the buildings (particularly the older ones) were blocked by other taller buildings, or they had small windows that were often frosted or barred. (The bars are to protect the windows during typhoons.)

Furniture. We were pleasantly surprised that most apartments come fully furnished or at least semi-furnished. This works perfectly for temporary residents like us.

Interesting designs. American luxuries like ovens and dishwashers are not common in Taiwan and we had already accepted that. But we discovered really interesting designs in some apartments. One apartment we saw had a staircase (see picture below), but the agent said we could not go upstairs. When we asked why, he said it’s because a family lives up there! 😮 There is a locked door between the apartment and upstairs, and the family has a separate entrance/exit, but it still freaked us out a bit.

Other apartments had appliances in unexpected places, like refrigerators in the living room or balcony. Another apartment had an upstairs with a bedroom and bathroom, but the ceilings were so low that you could barely stand up straight (and I’m only 5’3″!).

At this point, we were getting a little desperate. Our choices were limited: not only do we have to find an apartment that fit our needs, but one that is within a school’s service area plus a landlord who was willing to let us use the address for school registration.

We also had to work against time. School was starting soon and we needed to find an apartment, sign the contract, and update the boys’ ARC cards with the new address so we could register for school. Then, we had to get settled in and get ready for school before it starts. We had about ~2-3 weeks to do all this. Needless to say, it was pretty nerve-racking.

Next on the blog: the conclusion of our apartment search!

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Apartment Hunting in Taipei: Landlords

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Landlords posed a different problem in our search for an apartment. Apparently, some landlords in Taiwan do not report their rental income to the government and transactions are completed under the table.

This creates an issue for us because we need to use the apartment’s address on our Alien Resident Cards (ARCs). Public schools need to verify that the address on your child’s ARC falls within their service area, so this was a critical step.

But if an address is used on an ARC, this informs the government that the property is being rented out or has been sold. To avoid taxes, some landlords are unwilling to let you use their address for ARCs and school registration. You can avoid this issue if you agree to pay more (usually 10% extra) to cover the landlord’s taxes, but we wanted to avoid paying more if possible.

What surprised us though, was that landlords in Taiwan didn’t request paystubs or credit checks. This is common in the US and we were concerned this would be the case in Taiwan. Landlords do ask what our careers are, what we’re doing in Taiwan, and to see our “business cards” (we told them we don’t have any) but that was it. Rental contracts here require a 2-month security deposit which is pretty hefty, but as long as you can fork over the money you are qualified to rent.

Next up in our apartment hunting adventures: interesting apartment features!

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Apartment Hunting in Taipei: Schools

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Note: This is referring to public schools in Taipei only. The process for private schools will be different.

Every parent knows that the location of your home is important because that usually determines the school your kids can attend.

Last time, I shared that our strategy was to first decide the schools we wanted and then try to find an apartment close by. There were two issues:

  1. The PDF I had of school openings was only for 1st grade. We (stupidly) assumed that if a school had openings for 1st grade, they’d also have it for 3rd grade. Usually, there are more open spaces in the upper grades because families move or switch schools.

    But that’s not the case in Taipei. So I had to wake up at the crack of dawn while in Rome, brush off my rusty Mandarin Chinese, and call the schools to confirm whether they have space for my 1st and 3rd grader. Thankfully, 2 out of 3 schools we were interested in had space for both.

    An interesting tidbit about the public school system in Taipei is that there isn’t a centralized organization that governs the schools (like SFUSD in San Francisco for example). There is a Ministry of Education in Taiwan, but any school inquiries and enrollment is done with the individual school. This made things a bit more challenging for us because we had to communicate with multiple schools at once rather than work with one entity.

  2. Once we had a couple of schools to choose from, we started to look for apartments. Again, we (stupidly) assumed that as long as we could find an apartment within 15-20 minute walking distance to the school, we would be set.

    But soon, we learned that it doesn’t matter even if your apartment is 1 minute away from the school. If the address isn’t within the school’s service area, you cannot get in. I don’t know why we didn’t think of this because SF works similarly. Ugh, we wasted so much time looking at apartments that wouldn’t work for us in the first place. 😣

    This is the website where you can check which school is assigned to your address: https://schooldistrict.tp.edu.tw/html/search.jsp

    If the school your address is assigned to is full, you can request a transfer to the next closest school. From what I gather, you still have to officially register with your designated school but then you’d fill out a one page form requesting a transfer.

So lesson learned: never assume anything when you’re living in a foreign country. 😅

Now that we’ve figured out the schools (sort of?), we have to face our next challenge: landlords. Stay tuned for the next post!

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Apartment Hunting in Taipei: Real Estate Agents

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I want to interrupt our Europe blogs to share our experience apartment hunting in Taipei. We’ve actually been in Taipei for over 2 weeks now, so I’m obviously very behind in blogging 😅. But there’s just too much that has happened, and I want to document it all before I forget.

If I had to sum up our experience apartment hunting in Taipei, I’d say the overarching theme would be “expectations vs. reality.”

Let’s start with real estate agents.

In the last post about Taiwan, I shared that we’re using a real estate agent to help us look for an apartment. Normally in the US, this would be a DIY effort. We scour the internet to look for listings and work directly with the landlord to rent. Case closed.

Taiwan is different. Not only can we not speak the language, but we’re unfamiliar with the rules, laws and conventions of apartment renting. So, about a week before we left the US, I reached out to an English speaking real estate agency to get on their radar.

There is a cost to working with an agent. If you rent an apartment from the agent, you pay half a month’s rent as a service fee. The service includes negotiating the rental contract, assistance with utilities setup, acting as a liaison between you and landlord for the entire duration of your lease, and some agents can even help with purchasing furniture or appliances.

We told Kathy, our agent, what we were looking for in an apartment:

  • Ideally, the apartment is in Da’an district
  • It has 2 bedrooms
  • Near MRT (Taipei’s metro) or bus stop
  • At least semi-furnished
  • At least 30+ pings. Taiwan uses pings 坪 as a measurement of floor space. One 坪 is equivalent to about 35.6 square feet.

About a week before we landed in Taipei and while we were still in Rome, Kathy sent us a list of properties to look at. We were interested in a few of them, but we noticed the listings were all from her agency. We had seen a number of apartments that fit our criteria on rent.591.com.tw (which is equivalent to Craigslist in the US). Why weren’t any of those included?

This is where our expectations did not align with the reality. In the US, your agent can show you any property available. They collaborate with the buyer’s or seller’s agents and split the commission.

In Taipei, agents do not work with each other. If you wanted to view an apartment that isn’t listed under your agent’s realty company, you’d have to contact the representing agent yourself by phone or Line. (Line is the communications app commonly used in Taiwan.) Many times, the agent doesn’t speak English very well so Google Translate quickly became our best friend.

It’s possible for your agent to try and call the landlord and arrange something, but more often than not, the landlord doesn’t want to engage with another agent.

We had expected our agent to be a one-stop solution. She tracks down all apartments that fit our criteria, works with the landlord, negotiates the contract, and voila! We move in. The reality was Baba and I had to do a lot more work ourselves. Almost every night for 2 weeks, we’d scour rent.591.com.tw, create a spreadsheet of potential apartments, contact the different agents and schedule viewings with them. We were on a timeline (we rented an Airbnb for 2 weeks) so we had to act quickly.

On top of all this, we had to consider how the apartment would affect school registration for the boys. I’ll share more about that next.

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Reality Check from Taipei

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A lot of people asked if we have an apartment in Taipei yet. We don’t! Renting an apartment in Taipei is like anywhere else. Unless you’re willing to start paying rent before moving in, you’ll want to physically be there to check out the area and apartment before signing a lease. So, we rented an Airbnb for the first two weeks of August for apartment hunting. We do have an idea of the district we want to live in (Da’an).

In the middle of our vacation in Madrid, we got our first reality check. Our real estate agent in Taipei asked if she can look for apartments in both Da’an and Xinyi districts. I told her we wanted to concentrate in Da’an because we plan to use our Airbnb address (also in Da’an) to register for a nearby school. Then once we find our own apartment, we will update our address with the school. This is what some expats have done in the past, according to forums I lurk in.

But Kathy, our real estate agent, asked: “Did you ask your Airbnb host if you can use her address to register for school?”

Oh. Whoops.

It turns out our Airbnb host couldn’t let us use her address for school registration. We’re not sure why – maybe that address is already registered with a school – but we had to come up with Plan B, whatever that is.

We struggled with deciding what comes first – do we look for an apartment and then find a school nearby? Or find a school first, and then an apartment? I posed this dilemma on an expat forum and people advised to look for a school first because by the time we arrive in Taipei in August, many of the schools may be full.

Thankfully, a helpful stranger on the forum sent me a PDF of all the schools that were full in Taipei. I did some cursory research on schools that still have space (just based on Google reviews, the school’s website and Facebook page), and narrowed the list down to three. They are all in Da’an or Xinyi districts.

So now, our apartment hunting strategy is to find an apartment within walking distance to any of those schools, which is easier said than done. Apartments apparently get rented out quickly in Taipei so we’ll have to act fast. We have about one month to find an apartment and register for school before school starts on 9/1. We signed up for an adventure and we sure got it! 

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A Fond Adieu

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The time is finally here! What began as a flippant idea has become our new reality. Even though we’ve been planning and talking about this for 5+ years, it’s surreal that in 2 months, we will be living in another country.

In the past few weeks, we’ve been showered with many dinners, get-togethers and parties from our family and friends. During these moments, I pause and take a look around to appreciate what’s in front of me. I tell myself to remember this moment.

It’s human nature to take things for granted. We take things for granted on a daily basis, always with the assumption that if we need something it will be there. I’m no different.

But now we’ve come to a point where the things we are used to having may not be there anymore. So while it’s been incredibly hard to say goodbye, I learned to cherish everything about our life here, big or small – from how warm and cozy our apartment is, to the love and support we have from our family. I guess we sometimes need reminders like this to realize how lucky we are to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.

See you on the other side of the world. 😉

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Visa, Visa!

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Since Baba and I are approved for the Taiwan Gold Visa, we were given a resident authorization certificate.

Upon landing in Taiwan, we will need to go to the National Immigration Agency (NIA) with this certificate and get our official Gold Card and ARC, or Alien Resident Certificate.

Naively, we thought it would be an easy process to get C and O their visas now that both of us are approved. We filled out the dependent visa application online and went to the Taiwan consulate to submit it, along with the required documents: authenticated birth certificates, vaccination records and our marriage certificate. We thought we’d get the boys’ resident visas in a couple of weeks and off we go! Right?

Not quite. We got a call from the Taiwan consulate telling us that the boys’ resident visas will last only 3 months. And since we won’t land in Taiwan until August 1st, they will not approve the visas until early to mid May. We will then need to report to the NIA immediately after arriving in Taiwan to get ARCs for the boys, which requires a separate application. This process can take up to 2 weeks. We need their ARCs in order to register for school so this step is crucial.

We’re honestly still confused as to why we need the resident visa from the Taiwan consulate if it only lasts 3 months, and then have to apply separately for the boys’ ARCs in Taiwan. We thought getting approved for a resident visa = getting an ARC. Baba doesn’t think the Taiwan consulate would mislead us into getting a resident visa if we didn’t need one, so we’re just going along in good faith. Maybe there’s a good reason why people hire immigration lawyers for this stuff. 😅

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Goodbye Brings Hello

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Last week, we submitted notice that we won’t be returning to our school in the fall.

It’s a simple form, but I felt so conflicted filling it out. Even with our first year of kindergarten being completely virtual due to Covid, we found a wonderful, welcoming community at our school. I will miss seeing familiar friendly faces, soccer games and get-togethers, and the 5-minute walk to school.

Besides missing the obvious things like our school, family, and friends, I thought about all the “little” things I will miss about living in SF:

  • The oven: I LOVE to cook and bake with my oven. However, most Taiwan apartments don’t have ovens but maybe we can get a small convection oven as a compromise?
  • Food diversity: Taiwan has amazing food but I appreciate the variety of cuisines and ingredients in SF. Now that we’re only 1.5 months away from moving, I’ve been trying to cook and eat foods that will be hard to find in Taiwan (which includes Mexican, Indian and Southern fare).
  • Weather: I probably complained a little too much about the rain and cold this year but oh, I will yearn for the cool weather in SF when we have to face the typhoons and hot, humid weather in Taipei!
  • Neighborhood: While our 2-bedroom apartment is nothing to write home about, we love our neighborhood. Close to family, school, parks and grocery stores, the location is so convenient. I’ve heard that everything is incredibly convenient in Taipei so I’m not worried about that while we’re abroad. I just hope that we can find a place just as convenient when we return to the city.

As I get wistful about moving, it’s nice to find encouraging messages in unexpected places. One of those places is in a children’s book called Goodbye Brings Hello. I borrowed a ton of books about moving and dealing with change for C and O, but it turns out I may be the one who needs them most.

“There are many ways of letting go. With each goodbye, a new hello.”

This short but sweet book is about changes in life. It can be so difficult to say goodbye to the familiar. But the beauty is that when we say goodbye to something, we are often saying hello to something else. So as we say goodbye to our friends, school, oven, and neighborhood, we will say hello to many new things and experiences in Taiwan. And those hellos can be fabulous.