Spacious | Finding a place in Taipei

The house leasing culture is very unique and interesting in Taipei. For example, house listings online are often listed with amenities, which are special features and utilities that come with the place. Landlords often have requests such as "no-cooking", "no pets" or "girl-only"; such requests are often due to the subdivision of a bigger unit into smaller apartment units that landlords sublease to different individuals to maximize rent earning with the same space. If you have a limited budget, such subleased places could be considered in addition to traditional studio or apartments. The advantage of living in these subleased apartments is saving rent and connecting with neighbors; however, such units are often smaller and the electricity bill rate may be higher because the electricity bill is charged at a progressive rate. During summer times especially, the electricity bill will be more expensive the more you use and the rate you pay depends on the usuage between you and your neighbors.

In Taiwan, the monthly paid rent often excludes the apartment management fee, which are often paid by the tenants themselves. If you are looking for an apartment yourself in Taipei, Spacious is a very good source to find quality house listings as well as to gauge the market prices in the various districts of Taipei.

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The smaller expat community of Taipei means little sources of rental information for foreigners looking for a place in Taipei. Finding a place in Taipei can be cumbersome but also relatively easy. Finding a place through realtor agents may cost you an extra month of rent paid as commission. The suggested method is to walk around little alley communities in Taipei to look for flyers and bulletin boards near parks or to search online listings that could put you in direct contact with the landlords. Few vocabs should be learnt to be on top of the housing deal or win a good bargain.

Zu (租) is the Chinese word for to-let or rent. A flyer or a poster with this word should be a clue that you are searching for.

Utilities for housing in Taipei such as electricity, water and cable connection is often very different from other countries. Electricity bill are usually paid  by the tenants and ranges from 200NT to 2000NT per person depending on the usage; electricity rate may be higher during the summer and peak usage to encourage peak time saving and off peak time usage. Water bill is often included in rent because water bill is relativelly cheap to cover. The water bill rate is about 10NT/m3 of water in Taipei, where the water bill is the cheapest compared to other regions in Taiwan. Cable connection and Wifi is really up to the landlord to decide whether or nnot they are included; however, the core cable channels known as the "four channels" (第四台) is free of charge and additional channels may need to be subsrcibed at a cost. The ethernet (wifi) cables also come at a monthly subscription depending on the service provider which could range from 400NT to 2000NT per month. Cooking gas in Taipei is usually supplied through the connected gas tube systems; however, cylinder gas containers are still frequently seen in older places of Taipei. In such cases, cylinder gases usually cost about 500NT to 1000NT.

Most apartments or studios do not provide kitchen or utilities to cook and discourages the use of stove or electricity stove. If one wishes to cook frequently, he or she may need to pay a little more to find an apartment that has a kitchen. Taipei, being a gourmet city, has a lot of famous restaurants and vendors that one can dine in cheaply. A kitchen is not necessarily needed in a place like Taipei. You can search your apartments here Spacious to find a place with or without kitchen.

When first looking for a place in Taiwan, a lot of the foreigners typically find the unattractive housing deals due to language barriers and lack of market information. There are some complaints in the expat forums about scams related to housing. Scams and fraudulency is not uncommon in Taiwan and they could occur in banks, online shopping and housing deals. There was a foreigner who was looking to rent a place in Taipei but was contacted by a swindler who toured him around the apartment without owning the place. The foreigner was asked for a lump sum of deposit without being handed the keys. The foreigner was not tricked; however, he nearly handed over the money.

A lot of online real estate listings focuses on expats exclusively; however, they also charge a premium on the foreigners due to foreigners' lack of the local housing market. A bilingual platform where both local and foreign customers have access to helps to keep the system in check. Spacious.tw is working towards that goal. Spacious is a platform offering both Chinese users and English users a uniform location to interact; you can either find a place to rent, rent a place or sell/buy a place.

Area is measured in various units across the world. The most common measurement of area is square meter (m2) or square feet (ft2), but other measurements of area is also common. In Taiwan, area in the housing industry is referred to as ping (坪）, an unit of area adopted from the Japanese convention. Under the Japanese influences post WWII, Taiwanese housing market has adopted ping to become the unit of measurement of area ever since. One ping is about 3.3 square meter and 36 squre feet

Taipei is subdivided into two municipal regions: Taipei City and New Taipei City. Taipei City is located in the center of the New Taipei City and it is relatively more densly populated compared to Taipei City. Despite the high property prices in Taiwan; however, the rent is comparatively low. In fact, Taipei ranks among one of the top one city globally in terms of property price and rent disparaty. When looking for a home to let in Taipei, one can either search listings online such as www.591.com.tw or contact realtor agents such as Shinyi. Due to the small expat community in Taipei, listings online are rarely translated to English and realtor agents have som difficulty in serving the foriengers market.

Rent in the Taipei City differs from districts to districts; Da’an ranks among the top district in Taipei City in rent fees. However, it is also a very ideal place to settle at. Da’an offers a very convenient yet quiet community that attracts a lot of expats to live in. Da’an district encompasses the Da’an Forest Park, the lung of Taipei, which is an ideal place to exercise and live by. The Da’an district also has a lot of shopping complexes and schools that are suitable for daily consumptions and family needs.