Hi!
I recently moved to Kaohsiung and looking for housing but wondering how much I should budget for a rental. It’s just for me and I don’t mind sharing but would like somewhere relatively clean and on the newer side. Also if I could get any tips for finding housing as a foreigner with limited Mandarin skills that would be great! Ive looked on 591 but there is so much I don’t know how things work here, any tips would be great.
If you just want a room, 10k should be enough. Can go cheaper
If you want a kitchen and a bedroom, and limited black mold decorations in the bathroom, minimum more like 15
A clean place with appliances and parking, maybe 20k is a good number
I’ve been seeing some better deals in Fengshan and Lingya recently, but not good locations for me.
What kind of accommodation do you want?
What area?
591 works decently enough with Google Translate on Chrome, and you can filter a lot of places out quickly
Thanks for the reply! I am looking at places in Lingya District or along the redline and orange line would also be convenient.
Aside from the rent what other expenses come up for renting a place? How much would electricity and water be? And I like to cook, how much should I budget for groceries and eating out? Sorry for all the questions and I know it depends per person so any rough estimates would be amazing!
591 can let you filter just those areas. Install the Google Translate extension on a chrome browser on a laptop and it isn’t too awful.
Most places you will have to pay extra for water, electricity, gas, and internet. Not very expensive. Some places have management and/or parking fees. Any place you rent through an agent, the agent gets a fee that you pay. 591 had details per apartment
If you can enjoy the average restaurant food here, and get a place without a kitchen, you’ll probably be better off in terms of time and money at the end of the month. Most locals enjoy the local food, and don’t cook. Can probably live on 400NTD per day, more or less
Personally, I can’t eat the local slop more than a few times a week, and can’t afford the time or money to shuttle around to the better restaurants in town. So for me, it works out better to pay for a kitchen and go through the trouble of cooking and shopping. Not including the cost of a kitchen or the time required, I eat wayyyyy better than the local restaurants, and probably spend about 400NTD per day, more or less
Cheap room. looks decent but seems tiny ( 3 ping?)
If your student, also ask your school. Or even ask co workers or friends too which I done before in Taipei.
I found my house by just riding around the small streets looking fir rent signs (There are a lot, I got a full house)
I like cook sometimes too, useful when it rains or Typhoons. (My Typhoon food ha, pasta and fish in a tin)
My main reason for cooking is avoid fried foods and sometimes I do like various pasta combos.
I’ve never really noticed any. What do they look like?
Truths:
Very true. This is why i come from the opinion of: rent the cheap places (5-10k) and clean itbup myself. It works or better long term in my opinion. Financially, health, landlord annoyances etc. A small apartment cna be repainted for 5k pretty easily. Bleach ND a cheap flooring makes a place look great and you can save thousands every month in rent, which adds up pretty quick.
Even nice places don’t often have a meaningful kitchen. So build hat ones self easily and cheaply (kaoushiung has LOADS of second hand kitchen/vendor/restaraunt supply stores pingtung as well. DIY style cna save a person quite a lot I willing. In my opinion, the end result is always of better quality, better hygienenic standards and more money at he end ofbthebday to spend on improving one’s setup.
I don’t mind a place that needs a bit of work, but bathroom remodeling or AC units are lines I won’t cross. Still hard to find a place I’m satisfied with, will stay where i am for now but looking to move
Did a ride around some of the semi rural areas that I’m interested in, where it seems the places are mostly shuttered and nobody is around, but didn’t see any for rent signs
Me too. My line is construction. I don’t mind doing cosmetics, like paint, lighting, furniture etc… Ac is a middle ground I guess. I had my first one 2 years ago haha, so I’m not that picky, but I do own one that I just pack up with my things when I move. Ive never rented a place with an ac included i dont think. I would far rather an empty, clean place where the landlord lives on the opposite end of the country, but no AC. Used units are cheap. The amount of happiness and lack of stress of having the landlord as far away as physically possible is worth an extra 10k a month in my opinion 
the cool thing is, it’s usually cheaper when they are far away. Probably after 2-6 months of a no ac unit being cheaper would save enough money to buy a brand new one that cna be kept and moved down the road.
Basics:
Look for the community board, where announcements are pasted.
Some places might actually have it pasted on the window of the rental but they could be from an agent - extra cost, might be better. Might.
