“If you are willing to take one meaningful step on your own behalf toward making a dream come true today, the Universe will meet you where you are and help you take two.” Failing Up, Leslie Odom, Jr.
On June 21st, Ben’s going to the United States for a conference. He will be returning on June 28th. Our current apartment lease ends on June 30th. It was clear to me that we would not be able to move in the two days after he came back from the US. This meant that we would need to finish moving before he went to the US.
This gave us the moving goal of June 20th, and my being pregnant meant the moving process would take a while.
Given the pregnancy symptoms I was having at 6+ months, such as sciatica and tachycardia, I knew I would not be able to move within a week, like we had done the previous year. Believe it or not, carrying another human being around all the time has really slowed me done and put a limit on what I could do physically. So, I came up with the idea that we should find another apartment by the beginning of June instead of the beginning of July. This meant paying two rents in the month of June, but it would give us about three weeks to move. I could slowly pack things up during the week within my physical limits, and Ben and I could pack faster and begin moving stuff over on the weekends.
In order to find an apartment for the beginning of June, we would start looking for a new place in the last week of May. In this area of Kunshan, apartments are normally rented out very quickly. It’s a nice location, with a large, gorgeous Forest Park on one side and the Sports Center and Poly Theater on another. It’s also close to the campus, New Life Hub, and the European Village. It’s Kunshan’s most expensive area to live, and the price continues to increase as the years pass and the area continues to develop. Last year Ben and I found an apartment here within three days. Some apartments we were interested in, we never got a chance to see because on our way to look at the place, someone else agreed to take it. That’s how fast apartments can be rented out here.
Of course, being me, I started looking at the price range and options available at the beginning of May. At the beginning of May, though, I was much more reasonable. After some searching, I stopped looking at apartments and instead obsessed about the baby essentialsI would need before the baby arrived. It’s a surprisingly short list.
Once I could find no more reason to obsess about laundry detergent, cloth diapering, and labor, I turned back to apartment hunting on May 16th. I knew that was a silly decision because of how fast people find apartments in this area. I reasoned with myself that few landlords would be interested in giving up half a month’s rent (i.e. the second half of May’s rent) by starting a contract on June 1st, so there was no point in looking.
However, I looked.
I spent all of Thursday morning looking at apartments, and there were a few that I really, really liked. I liked them enough to consider paying six 1.5 months of overlapping rent in order to secure the place. I noted these apartments down, along with who the agent was in order to review them with Ben later. The whole time I was doing this, the logical part of my brain (Realist Maxi) was saying that I was starting too early. The apartments I was seeing online probably weren’t even available anymore. I was just wasting my time. However, the other part (Optimistic Maxi) did not care. The apartment search was releasing a lot of dopamine, and I was having fun changing my search terms and learning more about the area by looking at the different apartment complexes. There was also a sense of gratification in being able to figure this all out in Mandarin.
That night Ben and I looked at my finalists, and we narrowed it down to four apartments. Three of those apartments had the same agent, so we only needed to call two people about them. It ended up being the case that only one of those apartments was still available, and we setup a time to have a look at it in the morning, along with a few new ones the agent mentioned over the phone.
Ben took the morning off that Friday so that we could have a look together at the apartments. The first one we saw was on the list from the previous day of places I really liked. It had three bedrooms and two bathrooms. It was in a central location, and it came in well-below our budget in terms of cost. However, the place did need some work. For instance, it looked like the kitchen sink piping would need to be replaced entirely. There was also two large blocks of tiling that were missing in the bathroom area. The other problem was that one of the bedrooms had bunk beds instead of just one normal bed. The idea was that I wanted a place where both Ben’s parents and my mother could live at the same time. These bunk beds were not ideal. However, we liked a lot of other features of the apartment and talked to the agent representing the landlords about it.
I did not like this agent. First, she started off by saying that the apartment was available for rent at a price 12.5% higher than what was listed online by the agent we came with. Normally, people talked the rent price down, not up. The fact that she was saying this apartment really went for 12.5% more than we were told immediately put a bad taste in my mouth.
I know that every country has a “foreigner” price, but I thought this was ridiculous. It was one thing not to negotiate a lower rent but trying to hike it up more than 10% was too much, especially since the place was not nearly as nice in person as it was in the photos. And did I mention the room with the bunk beds? Even so, Ben asked all of the questions we had prepared to ask about each place we saw, which included whether or not the landlord was willing to start the contract from June 1st(Hey, it doesn’t hurt to try). In response to this question, the landlord’s agent was like, “I don’t think the landlord would be willing to do that. In fact, I wouldn’t even do that.” I wanted to tell her that I didn’t ask her opinion on the matter, but it was okay. If the landlords were anything like their agent, then this was not the place for us.
The next place we looked at was bigger (4 bedrooms), but it maxed out our budget. Also, the decoration was not our style. More importantly, the kitchen, despite the large space, was simply too small and somewhat falling apart. Upon seeing the kitchen, Ben and I immediately crossed this place off our list, even though it had these lovely bay windows I could see myself spending a lot of time in.
We moved on to another place that morning that was in the budget, though a little more expensive than the first. Interestingly, our agent talked about how this place was actually 10% more than what she had told us on the phone. However, she felt she may be able to talk the landlord down to the price we were originally told. This made no sense to me. You tell us one price last night over the phone, then say today that you may be able to negotiate with the landlord to the price you already told us? You do realize this makes no sense, right? I couldn’t help thinking that the only difference in price between last night on the phone (when Ben called) and now was that a foreigner tax was being applied. It amazed me that people felt they could talk a price up, and I would just be like, “Oh, yeah, reasonable. Makes perfect sense.”
This new place we liked a lot more. Even though the furniture was again not our style, it was big. Also, because no one else had ever lived there, there was not much junk to convince the landlord to move out.
A brief aside to talk about wedding condos (婚房). In China, having a home and a car are important to have, especially for men, if one wants to get married. Since wages in China are increasing linearly, while the cost of living increases exponential, most people prefer to marry someone who already has the basics. This saves the couple from the stress of having to pay a mortgage and a car note on their salaries. After a couple gets married, they normally spend their first night in their condo, which has all these wedding-related decorations put up.
The apartment we were looking at was a wedding condo. The landlords stayed there the night they married and have not lived there since. It’s likely they have another home in a better location or some similar reason for not living there. Real estate is a great investment right now in China, so many people prefer to buy housing as an investment over putting that money into the bank.
The apartment we were viewing had been empty for six months, or so we were told. The landlords finally decided to rent it out to make some additional income. When we saw the place, it felt like it had been empty for 3 years. There was such a thick layer of dust on everything, I was worried that a newborn might not be able to breath here. It also seemed like the furniture was a bit moldy from the wet Kunshan climate and no one being here to control the temperature. Even so, Ben and I considered whether we would be willing to clean it up and transform it into our own place. It was more of a fixer upper than I wanted, but I started thinking about who could sleep where and paying attention to the details of making this place a home.
We told the agent we would consider taking the place if the landlord was willing to start the contract on June 1st, buy a bed for one of the bedrooms (the place had 3 bedrooms and a separate study, but there were only 2 beds in it), and replace the washing machine, which looked like it would fall apart if you put in more than one article of clothing at a time. The agent called the landlord, who agreed to our first request but said we would need to buy our own bed and replace the washing ourselves if we wanted that. She said she was very busy and didn’t have time to deal with all of that. She just wanted to rent the place out.
Ultimately, I decided the place was too much work, and I didn’t want to spend the money on a bed frame, mattress, and washing machine. This was not my home. When I left China, what would I do with a bed and washing machine? If the landlord didn’t have enough time to take care of her own condo, then I certainly didn’t have the time, energy, or money to do it for her. I told the agent that at 6+ months pregnant, I could not take on the job of getting this place to a livable condition.
I could see the agent’s disappointment.
We saw one more apartment, but it only had one bathroom. That would certainly not be enough. So, Ben and I went to have lunch, feeling a little sad we had not found a place but also feeling good about getting the lay of the land. I viewed this particular morning as a practice run.
During our lunch, the agent called and said the female landlord of the messy wedding condo was willing to put in a bed and buy a second-hand washing machine. However, she would need to talk to her husband about this and get back to us in the evening. Ben was surprised and excited because he really liked the size of the apartment. I was left wondering what the point of buying a second-hand washing machine was. It was likely to break sooner; you didn’t know the history; and you would ultimately still need to buy another one when this broke. I didn’t understand this landlord, which did not bode well for any future landlord-tenant relationship. If even at the contract stage she was so in flexible and frugal, I was worried that she would become even more obnoxious once I signed my name on the dotted line.
Before we went for lunch, the agent had mentioned that another apartment was available. She said she would send us pictures, but the pictures did not do the place justice. This apartment would also max out our budget, and Ben and I considered not going to see it at all. However, after work and dinner, we walked to the apartment complex on the east side of the Sports Center to have a look. After all, a look couldn’t hurt.
We walked in. We walked around. We went into what would be our bedroom, and we knew that we would pay whatever the landlord was asking for the place.
This apartment had been empty for a year, but the landlord had kept this place nice. Sure, there was that layer of dust that needed to be cleaned off, but nothing like the wedding condo we had seen in the morning. The apartment had three bedrooms and an office that could also double as a kid’s room. It had a stove, a dishwasher, a washing machine that was also a dryer, and central air throughout the apartment. A stove, dishwasher, dryer, and central air are not standard features of an apartment in our part of China. The landlord also threw in the storage room he owns in the basement. We now had 30 additional square meters to just store things like boxes that would otherwise clutter the apartment. The walls and ceilings were beautifully designed with tasteful trees, flowers, and a gorgeous peacock that greeted you when you entered the door.
This place was also a wedding condo, and the landlord had only stayed there one night, but he had designed the place for he and his family to live. He didn’t live there now because of where his wife found a job. Living at this house would mean a long commute for her. He could work anywhere, so he moved for her. This landlord was actually two years younger than me, and he was very nice. We got him to bring the rent down a bit so that we could still cover a few utilities within our housing budget. We also managed to guarantee that the price of the rent would not increase for the next three years if we wanted to stay on. So, no need to worry about the price going up next year.
He even agreed to let the contract start on June 1st.
When I think about all of the foolishness I had dealt with in the morning—the agent who talked the rent price up for an apartment that needed so much work, and the landlord who wasn’t willing to buy a new washing machine for her own place—I was glad I waited for the Universe to step in. Somehow, in the middle of May, I now had 5 weeks to move, instead of the original 3 I had planned. My rent contract still started from June 1st, and I was going to be living in an apartment even beyond my ideal.
When Ben and I started looking for an apartment, we didn’t think something this nice would even be an option in the area where we were. We didn’t think we’d get it for the price we did, including a storage room. Even Ben’s dad, who is a very serious critic of all things not his home or not in Shanghai, said we had made a good decision. He really likes the place.
I was so overjoyed by our find that I barely slept that night. I couldn’t believe we had found an apartment beyond our dreams in 36 hours from the time I started looking that Thursday morning.
Sometimes doing the logical thing may cause you to miss out on opportunities that take a leap of faith. I am all about being rationale, but I’m glad I let myself look at apartments that morning because sometimes the universe just steps in.
**The featured image is the wall design in the office / kid’s room. I feel like the slogan is appropriate for this story. Sometimes you just do it.
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