We May Have Found Our Dream House
After two months of traipsing around countless appartments in Huangpu and Luwan, it looks like we have finally found a flat that we want to buy. It’s big enough, centrally located and it’s even affordable by downtown standards. I am not going to tempt fate by giving away too much information until we get the keys, but a couple of things stood out for us during the process of buying a house in Shanghai.
Firstly, there is no concept of due diligence. My mother and father in law vetted the real estate agency by getting them to show their credentials.
Fate and timing seem to work just as strongly here as anywhere else. Hanyu showed us all sorts of properties, but nothing was suitable or we were beaten to the finishing line by other house hunters. Another agent showed us just one property that we are now trying to buy. Hanyu’s salesman almost burst into tears when he found out we were not going to buy a property from him, especially as he had to pay back 9000 RMB deposit from an earlier bid that was turned down by the seller.
New houses are given 70 year leases and this appartment was buillt in 1997. If we live there that long, I will be 94 years old when the lease expires. What happens then?
In the meantime, my UK house remains on the brink of being sold. There is still an outstanding question about access to the lane at the back. The buyer’s solicitor is a cretin for not resolving this much earlier and refusing to accept the answer that homeowners have shared access to this space under the Housing Act. We are counting on this non issue being resolved quickly.
The UK housing market practices due prevarication and China has few safeguards for people buying and selling houses. We are stuck in the middle. Let’s hope both places meet there soon.