Is there a good agency, which focuses (among Chinese students) on English speaking students?

[Phmios]

Hey there,

I am wondering whether there exists a high quality English speaking agency (maybe also expats work there), which I could tell, what I am looking for and they give me 3 offers or so. The focus should be on students in the student area (so, rather rooms in the range of up to 5,000 yuan than apartments for 20,000). Obviously the price would be one rent or sth. like that.

Does such an agency exist? If not, I think it would be a great business idea :-D

Thank you.

[roddy]

Plenty of agencies in Beijing have English speaking staff - the actual foreign staff are probably still mainly at the higher end of the market though. Wudaokou's full of them.

As for quality - basically that's going to really depend. Two branches of the same agency might be run completely differently. Two agents out of the same office might be completely different. The same agent might be great to deal with in winter when things are quiet, but at the start of term when there are hundreds of desperate foreign students running around fighting over apartments, he might not be so helpful.

[Phmios]

Thank you! :-)

If anybody else knows "a good agent in August/September" who is fluent in English, please let me know. Maybe somebody with whom u had great experiences last year?

The best would be a website, where conditions and procedute are also explained in English :-)

[Lu]

If you're an expat, ask your company about this. If you're not an expat, you don't want to limit yourself to one agency anyway. Beijing is crawling with housing agencies, seek out a few in a neighbourhood you're interested in and go look at some houses. An agency interested in your business will push their English-speaking employee in your direction.

There are a few threads on housing, procedures and such, you can try reading those first.

[Phmios]

Thank you!

I am a just a student, who will study at Beida for a year and I already read some threads and I my impression is also that "Beijing is crawling with housing agencies". So, my question is with which concrete housing agencies did you have a great experience and found what you were looking for (and it was not a rip off, they seemed competent and English speaking, etc.) as a student coming in August last year or the years before?

If there are already some great housing agencies named in some threads, I am sorry that I did not find it. It would be great if you could send me the link :-)

[roddy]

See on the left hand side of the screen about two inches below the 'start new topic' button you clicked to start this new topic...'resources and advice for apartment hunting in Beijng'...?

[Phmios]

I did not find any concrete names for -great- agents (based on past experience, as explaines above), except this general advice:

"Agents

Many ads placed online are typically by agents. They can be helpful in reducing the amount of leg work you have to do, but typically will have a fee equal to one month, paid by either the tenant or landlord, and sometimes negotiable. You should clarify this when responding to online ads; if you're trying to search online you'll find that a large number of postings at the above websites are actually posts from agencies such as 我爱我家 or 21世纪 - which may be an indication that you might be better off just going directly to the area desired and inquiring at those offices rather than muddling through all their webpages."