Furnishing a place

Hello. I would like some estimates on furnishing an apartment in Kaohsiung, please. We are a family: Father, Mother, and 4-year-old so 2 beds. We would want a washer and microwave, TV, Fridge, living room couch and chair, dining set. I guess just the basic big stuff. Any and all constructive suggestions and estimates are appreciated.

It so depends on what you want, especially when it comes to furniture. Non-tacky stuff is pricey, but decently made though oddly colored/designed stuff is relatively cheap. Many apartments come furnished with the big stuff so I would look into that unless you plan to be here for a long time.

Large fridge: 10-20,000
Washer: 10,000
Microwave: 3-6000

Couch and chair: 20-50,000
Dining set: 10-40,000
Adult bed: 5-20,000
Child bed: 5000

Sofa, love seat and arm chair in leather with coffee table and end table=~45k
42 inch flat screen tv=~20k
2 Twin beds for kids with foam mattresses=~15k
Queen adult bed with good mattress=~25k
Western style full size fridge=~25k
Washing machine=~8k
Micro=~5k
Decent baking oven=~6k
Kitchen and dining ware for a family of 4=~5k
Table and 6 chairs=~10k
I am probably a bit on the high side with these numbers but, as I recall, itā€™s about what I paid without really shopping around. I just wanted to get my place furnished quickly. Oh, BTW, the cold beer for when the job was done was ~200
EDIT: Donā€™t forget to plan on buying closets as the houses here donā€™t have built in storage. Plan on anothe 20k for storage cabinets and closets
EDIT 2: Look for a place with A/C already installed or plan on another 90k for a 3 bedroom home.

You might also keep an eye out on craigslist and the ads here. Many people leave and just want to get rid of stuff.

I got a nice leather couch, loveseat, and chair for about $4000 when my friend left. Stuff like that is very common.

Thank you very much, folks. Your posts are helpful. At the moment we are hoping to stay in Taiwan between 4-6 years. Thatā€™s the plan anyway. Do places deliver this stuff or would I have to hire separate delivery service? Thanks.

591.com.tw

has lots of second hand goods, very cheap, and you can sell the same stuff there yourself again once youā€™ve used it a bit longer (often for the same money).

Delivery often not included, but some commercial resellers of fridges etc do deliver. And paying for someone to deliver is normally not expensive, especially once you have seen the low prices for some stuff.

the yahoo group KaohsiungLiving frequently has used furniture for sale at pretty good prices. And the higher end stuff usually appears on there for several times before selling.

Iā€™ve also heard that there are some used furniture shops on Sanduo Rd near Sogo department store that I will check out in a couple of weeks. I also need to furnish an apartment but Iā€™m doing it on the cheap since Iā€™m only planning on two more years in Taiwan.

Here a couple of websites of supermarkets and such so you can have an idea of the prices:

carrefour.com.tw/

rt-mart.com.tw/e_book.asp?id=844

elifemall.com.tw/

For instance, using å…Ø國電子 store as an example, you have (click big ad on center for brochure display):

-fridge: 24000
-TV: 14000
-washing machine: 9000
-microwave: 2000

Living room -if new, hereā€™s a link also for reference:
momoshop.com.tw/category/Lgr ā€¦ 01&ctype=B

If you want western style furniture at a reasonably low price then Ikea is probably your best option. http://www.ikea.com/tw/zh/store/kaohsiung/eng_ikea_KaoHsiung

The delivery charge is quite expensive but itā€™s flat rate so if youā€™re buying quite a lot of stuff together itā€™s not so bad.

If you have time you might want to look around Taichung, I have shown a few friends from KHH around the furniture stores here and they ended up buying here and getting it shipped down. You can get a really nice custom upholstered sofa for less than $20k and I bought some really nice solid wood/glass tables and chairs for pretty good prices in our old house.

If you are looking at buying a high end or western style appliance then you can save big bucks by going to a specialist internet-based dealer. We really wanted a large fridge with built in ice maker but the standard models were too big for our current kitchen so we had to buy a clever Japanese model designed for Tokyo apartments. It was on sale for something like $42k in RT-Mart but we found a slightly better/newer version for $34k by searching ruten.com.tw

One thing about the big box retailers like RT-Mart, Carrefour etc. is that they have a price guarantee. We bought an a/c unit from RT-Mart a few years back and a week after purchasing noticed Carrefour had the same model on sale for $6,000 less. We showed them the magazine ad and RT-Mart refunded the $6,000!

For your TV take a look at the big supermarkets then try ē‡¦å¤ (donā€™t know the English name, their stores have a distinctive yellow flag logoā€¦ website is tkec.com.tw). Despite being a big chain store they will haggle and if you tell them that x store has a better price they will almost certainly match the price and offer something extra to sweeten the deal, even if itā€™s just a free HDMI cable and/or interest free credit. If youā€™re embarrased about haggling then just casually mention to the salesman that your friend recommended their store because of great service but itā€™s a real shame that Carrefour are a little cheaper on that model.

Buying secondhand is much more reasonable, but if you have a lot of extra money to buy new, then sure.

In Taipei, at least, prices for secondhand furniture at the market is roughly as follows. Probably even cheaper in KHH.

TV 25-29 inch (old models, not flatscreen) 2-3k
Washing machine 3-5k
Dryer 2-4k, but lame and small
Fridge 2 (small) to 5k (regular sized
Microwave oven 1-2k? - donā€™t see them often, donā€™t cost that much new anyway.

Desks and chairs you can buy new for cheap, so not worth buying secondhand.

People are always moving and selling all their stuff, so it may be worth it to buy some cheap stuff to outfit your apartment and get by first, then pick out bargains slowly.

Sure, you can buy a beautiful dining table and matching chair set for 40k, but a not so pretty set you pick up for 2k secondhand will probably serve you at least 90% as well.

Iā€™m looking into Kaohsiung furniture options but the threads here seem old and Google of course refers me back to Forumosa. Facebook Marketplace seems more trouble than it is worth, I wonā€™t buy IKEA. Iā€™d prefer used, wooden, Asian-style furniture (bed platform, shelving/storage, table(s)). So my questions are:

  1. Are there used furniture markets in Kaohsiung? An area that I could spend an afternoon looking at used wooden furniture options would be great.

  2. Is Kaohsiung the best place to buy? I remember reading months back on a forum (was that @the_bear?) that Tainan has better furniture options, and it is close by, but now that Iā€™m about ready to buy I canā€™t find the thread againā€¦

Any other advice would be appreciated!
I think these guys live here: @KHHville @DrewC @DKaoshuing @tango42

č©©č‚ÆꟚęœØ - Google Maps

This street or area has/had more furniture shops. Most things are new . The map link is for one shop I do not know, just to show the area and street to go to visit. For used, not sure where look. (One thing I wanted add, shop and haggle the price if there is something you like , itā€™s not Ikea where its a fixed price and can not be changed.)

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