According to the latest statistics, Nanjing already has around 8,000 long term foreign residents. For native Nanjingese this means that having foreigners as neighbors is no longer a rare event, and renting out apartments and housing to foreigners has already become a method of investment for many people.

Reporters recently discovered through interviews that residential areas for foreigners are concentrated in three areas around Nanjing.

Besides hotels, the housing that foreigners tend to rent in Nanjing at the moment is centered around the Golden Eagle International Gardens in the center of the city, apartment complexes around Crescent Lake (Yueya Hu) in the eastern part of the city, and around scenic and beautiful house complexes in the suburbs.

Manager Xu of the Zhongxin Zhiye Rental Company says that hotels and high level apartment complexes are the main choices for foreigners living in the central city areas, looking at the over 70 foreign households that have moved into the Golden Eagle International Gardens complex at the moment, most of the households are mid to high level white collar workers of multinational companies and large foreign invested enterprises. Every month they spend 10,000 to 20,000 RMB on rent for housing.

One Italian worker that moved out of the Jinling Hotel to an apartment complex calculated his expenses: at the hotel one night was 2,000 RMB, every month cost 60,000 RMB; but after renting an apartment, his quality of life was not changed whatsoever, and he saved 2/3 of what he was paying.

Outside of the city center, Top Regent Park, Tingquan Village, Zijin Villa, Jiahu Ludao, and other scenic house complexes near mountains and water have become the "camps" that foreigners like to rent.

People of the management department of Top Regent Park told reporters that although the renting costs of independent houses in Top Regent Park are not cheap¨Crent can reach as much as 5,000 USD a month, already 90% of the over 200 households in residence of the complex are being rented to foreigners, and currently foreign households from 11 countries or regions live there. It can be said that this area is the complex with the highest percentage rate of foreign residence.

Plum Blossom Heights, Lakeside Skyscraper, Crescent Lake Gardens, and other areas also have collected many foreigners who rent houses for themselves and their families. The high end apartment complexes here are situated near Crescent Lake, and opening one's window, one can appreciate the beautiful scenery of this magnificent area.

This place is relatively close to the city district, living is convenient, and rent is less than half of that of upscale houses, thus it has received great welcome among some foreigners.

Not all foreigners rent luxurious places to live in

All of the luxurious residence rentals seems to be connected to foreigners, however it's not that every foreigner can afford to pay 5,000 USD a month for housing.

Reporters have learned from several apartments that are rented out to foreigners that beside the category of foreigners who pay between 1,000 and 5,000 USD in rent every month in Nanjing, those that pay between only 1,000 RMB to 3,000 RMB per month account for 1/3.

The scope of foreigners who rent relatively low priced housing is broad, including the mid to lower level management personnel of enterprises, study abroad students, and so on. The locations that they chose are usually near their respective institutes of higher education: a well renovated two bedroom apartment near Nanjing University and Nanjing Normal University usually rents for around 2000 to 3000 RMB a month, they rent here primarily for convenience.

Manager Gu Xiaopeng of Nanjing Sunco Realtor's Company said of rentals to foreigners that those renting luxurious housing are usually high level management from Europe, rental fees are paid for by their companies. Many foreign exchange students look for roommates to rent together with, sometimes even renting an apartment with Chinese students; thus their apartments end up costing them about the same as what an ordinary citizen would pay.

However, foreigners that live together in their own apartments tend to be only foreign exchange students from Korea, Japan, and some African countries.

Personnel of a certain rental company say that Europeans and Americans are most easy going about renting housing, as long as they find a high quality place with a certain amount of cultural content they are satisfied; while Asians and foreign exchange students tend to look for the best deals for their pocketbook.

What kinds of housing do foreigners prefer to rent?

In Nanjing, foreigners tend to pay high rents, have good living habits, and care for the furniture of the rental... all this has become reasons why city natives try to rent out their apartments and houses to foreigners, if you want to rent you place out to a foreigner, how can you rent it out quickly?

Industry insiders support say that if you want to buy an apartment or a house and then rent it out to foreigners, location is very important. The total area of an apartment in the center of the city need not be too great because apartments here make it convenient for single foreigners to go out for entertainment at night. Many foreigners of the Yangtze BASF Group, and the Fiat Company choose to live in the Golden Eagle International Gardens.

However, these apartment complexes are not suitable for whole families of foreigners. Those foreigners with family usually choose a nicer environment that has a good international school and activity sites for their children, preferring peacefulness and safety over convenience. Sometimes they even purposely look for a place some distance away from where they work and where their coworkers live.

Places near projects with ongoing construction day and night will not be acceptable to foreigners; places with inadequate facilities and facility services (such as not having foreign language satellite TV service), or even places where there is too much noise from neighbors, foreigners will be hard pressed to accept.

The housing should be renovated in a clean and bright style, with white or light yellow as the main color, having too flowery or noisy a paint scheme is no good. The kitchen area should be big, with the kitchen, bathrooms, and study clearly divided.

Kitchen utensils should be stainless steel, there should be two bathrooms, one with a shower and the other with a bath tub. Areas to put towels should be bright, and the sound absorption of the toilet should be good. There should be four burners on the stove, and a large ventilation machine, and there should be plenty of phone jacks, TV cable jacks, and computer internet jacks.

When renting out housing, owners should go along with the price of the market, don't think that foreigners are willing to pay any price. Actually, if you really want to rent out your house or apartment, you should set a price in accordance with the market conditions, too high a price and nobody will be willing to rent. Besides this, foreigners demand a certain amount of "character" in housing.

For example, one French businessman thought that the bed in the apartment he rented was too hard, he thus spent a great deal of money shipping a bed to Nanjing from France. (From: ODTN.com)

By Sha Wenrong    Translated by Charles Smith