House Hunting Day 1

My HR group had scheduled me for 4 days of house hunting with 2 different RE agents, they said to keep it "secret" - that there are 2 agents involved. I guess they don't want me to be limited by one agents stomping ground or perhaps they might be in cahoots with certain landlords. My HR group had asked each agent to meet me in the lobby at 8AM. Both agents had contacted me in advance about what our preferences are and the second agent said she could not meet me until 9:30 Wed.

The first agent, David, never responded regarding the schedule so I wasn't surprised that even by 9:30 or so, I had heard nothing. Once I got my computer set up I reverified the schedule and appointments and called him up on Skype as I don't have a local cell phone yet and have no clue what the roaming costs are. He was very apologetic that he misread the appointment and thought I was coming next week and agreed to meet me at 2:00 PM to get started today and we could finish on Tues.

Things got off to a rocky start as he ignored my budget constraints and thought I was on some unlimited ex-pat expense account and lined up a bunch of 4 bedroom places in Taipei, even though I said we wanted a 1 or 2 bedroom. The first group of places were simply gross. Big, but gross. I think a small gross place is less, well, gross than a big gross place. What I found most gross was the layers of mold and mildew in the bathroms and  general musty smell, indicating that the apartment might not hold up well in a typhoon. And the views out the back can be a challenge, too.

We were limited in neighborhood by our desire to have easy access to the highway for me to drive to work, easy access for Shirley to get the bus to work (without too many transfers) and our desire to be near the MRT so we can explore Taipei without having to drive. When he realized I wasn't looking to pay NT$70k (about $2300USD/mo) for a bunch of grossness, he hopped on the cell phone with home base to come up with some alternatives.

He said from the start that he had one place in mind that he thought was really nice, but was a 5 floor walk-up with no elevator. An elevator was on our list as a high priority. I guess we just didn't want to walk up 12 flights of stairs and assumed that any building without an elevator would be gross, but as I had already determined, an elevator may just get you to the grossness faster. The owner met us at the 5 floor walkup and it was actually very nice. He owns the entire building and the 2 apartments on the 5th floor are available for around NT$50k. They are about 37 pings (~1300 sqft) and are very well decorated. There is a 3 bedroom, and then a 1 or 2 bedroom which he architect wife took some creative liberty with. There is a second room with glass walls with a wrap around curtain such that it can be used as a guest bedroom when needed.

We were originally looking for a place in a "luxury" building with a gym and concierge desk, etc. because looking on Craigslist, it looked like such places were within our price range. I looked at a few with David, and the problem is, they are just way too small. The price is OK and if I could get 2 of them next to each other and knock out the walls, it might work out. I asked if there was a 2 bedroom available in the building at twice the price and he said "no", they are apparently just geared toward single people.

After talking with Shirley, the apartment above is the front runner from my trip with David. At the end of day 1, David said he didn't have anything else to show me so we would skip day 2 rather than waste time. I was a bit disappointed but he wasn't well prepared to begin with so I was looking forward to working with Hope, the second agent on Wed. While the architect apartment is definitely do-able, I think it's prophetic that agent #2 is named "Hope".