We are planning to move to Taipei in May, not for work (no employer housing or assistance). I saw a couple threads from recent years, most recent was about Kaohsiung, on this quesiton but no one had any recommendations so I’m throwing it out there again. I know about using 591.com translated to English which is great, but I want to find an agent to show us around. I had a agent contact last year but she shut her business recently. My wife speaks Mandarin but she hates making cold calls to landlords and haggling etc. She would rather pay an agent to do this, AND have ME deal with the agent in English Please let me know if any of you know any agent/office in Taipei that speaks English. Thanks!
From looking on 591 it seems that LOTS of the agencies in Taipei speak English, probably to varying degrees of competency. If no one replies here with a specific contact, your best bet would be to call up a few and test the waters in English.
Note that these will be agencies renting out more expensive/expat-oriented apartments, e.g. $30k/month and above.
Also, just in general, renting an apartment in Taipei freakin sucks, for so many reasons. If you’ve done it before you probably already know that. If you don’t care about price and can pay a lot (e.g. US prices), it should be pretty painless.
Thanks for the reply! Your comment about renting there sucks, is that mainly due to fierce competition with locals for the normal/lower cost units? Or something else? We haven’t rented there before so any insight is appreciated. Our budget is around 40k NT a month or so for a newer 2bed place. I was hoping that in the higher range I won’t have so much competition, sounds like that’s what you were inferring. What I want to avoid is getting sent to overpriced expat units designed for people with a company stipend for rent, we’re paying out of pocket. I’m even thinking to look around 50k and haggle the price down with the landlord by paying more months up front. That’s common there right (haggling price)?
My comment was due to the experience of trying to deal with landlords & agents last year. E.g. showing up to see one place which we saw pictures of online… then being shown something different in the same building and not even being told it was not the one we came to see. We had to wander around 10 minutes first and thinking everything looked slightly different, then we finally asked, is this the unit from the listing? “Oh, no it’s a different unit.” OK, thanks for telling us…
Also literally showing up to apartments and then the call from the landlord “Oh, I forgot about you. I already rented it.” OK, thanks, just rode the MRT for an hour and rescheduled our workdays for nothing.
It’s just horrible. Unreliable landlords, sneaky agents changing units, and running around a million places only to be told when you get there that it’s already been rented.
You will deal with less of this around $40k+ I suspect. But still it will happen. Or maybe you’ll get lucky and grab the first place you see.
I know someone renting for $70k who looked at 30 places.
I know someone else who had a company stipend for $80k and looked at 25 places.
The “high end” of the market in Taipei seems to be about $70k+ and at that price range I’m sure you’ll be very well taken care of. But it’s such a bizarre, unequal market, with those $70k+ places available and then also tons of unbelievably depressing closets with shared bathrooms for $8k.
You can negotiate, yes. Our current place was listed for $32k + doorman fee, but we negotiated it down to $27k with doorman fee included. It had been empty for two months so we had the leverage.
I am lucky to have a landlord who speaks better English than me
As an English speaking agent I can recommend Jenny of www.sunghsin-realestate.com . Shes not a native speaker, but definitely good enough. This company also prepares the contract in both Chinese and relatively passable English.
Regarding 591 my experience was that many agents seem to use English and Japanese in their profiles purely for aesthetic reasons - they don’t speak the language. If you’re interested in an agent just call, ask in English if they have someone speaking English, and go from there.
edit: corrected URL
Thank you very much for this referral, I still have not heard back from the 5 agencies I emailed the other day to see if they have English speaking agents on staff. Also thanks okonomiyaki for sharing you experiences with renting, at least I will not be shocked when those types of things happen!
Bummer, I tried Jenny’s site and it’s down. Also saw another version of the smae company that is also down I did find a gmail account for her and sent her an email. Hope she went to work at another agency and still has that email. Same thing happened to we with another referral last year, they closed their business before I got to Taipei to meet with them.
You might try sherry.huang@taipei-property.com. I have used her as a real estate agent before for some apartments I found on 591. She speaks English and provides a Chinese and English contract.
One thing about all agents here, they get paid depending on whether you rent the apartment. So you will get some help up front and at the end of the lease in dealing with the landlord, but typically after a month they will usually (but not always) ignore you. So go in there knowing you will likely have to communicate with the landlord yourself for most of the lease.
Thanks nonredneck and olm for the referrals, I have just emailed both. I also got a reply and LINE contact this morning from one of my “cold emails” to Century 21 in Taipei. The web site for Sherry, www.taipei-property.com doesn’t come up even if I add the .tw at the end, but I still emailed her.
I don’t believe that Taipei property is where she works. I think she works for a company called Elegant Realty now but still uses that Taipei-property.com e-mail.
My experience with century 21 was very disappointing, but I guess it depends on which agent you have. The ones in nangang I had contact with seemed both shady and useless.
I have a Duplex Residential Unit in Tianmu, Taipei City. Our apartment has its own yard, parking space, in close proximity to parks and the most famous market:Shi-Dong market, easily accessible , the environment is graceful.
Layout:4 Bedroom(s) (2-Ensuite); 2 Bathroom(s); Combined Living and Dining Room;
The master bedroom is facilitated with walk-in-closet. The bathrooms have been very well maintained.
Many prestigious colleges and schools can be found in this district, the most historical and famous schools being probably National Yang-Ming University,Taipei American School, Taipei Japanese School, just to name a few.
Many famous hospital can be found in Tianmu ：Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Cheng Hsin Hospital, SHIN KONG WU HO-SU MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, they create a high-quality medical service .
Please let me know if any of you know any agent/office in Taipei that speaks English. Thanks!
I did find a gmail account for her and sent her an email. Hope she went to work at another agency and still has that email. Same thing happened to we with another referral last year, they closed their business before I got to Taipei to meet with them.