Renting Series - From House Viewing to Application (Part 2)

From Selection to Booking You can book a viewing on Realestate once you've found a place you like. There are two modes: one is the viewing time given by the agent, and the other requires tenants to leave a message and wait for the agent to arrange.

Realestate comes with a calendar, but if the agent uses their own platform, it won’t show, so I put the booking in my Calendar.

House Viewing There's a big difference in renting here compared to back home, which is "what you see is what you get". The condition of the house you see is what you'll get when you move in and you must maintain it until you move out. For example, if there's only one air conditioner when you view the house, that’s the only one you'll have when you move in and when you move out. Even if you add a new one yourself, you don’t leave it for the landlord or the next tenant. It's almost unheard of for tenants to make major alterations. So, viewing is essential to see if it really meets your needs. For instance, we care about how old the house is, whether the stove is gas or induction, the distance of the smoke detector from the stove, the number and location of air conditioners, ventilation and brightness, indoor noise, and whether the parking spot is a separate garage, a shared garage, or a street parking.

Then, unlike in China where an agent takes you to see the property alone and you can decide on the spot, here you view with a group of people, giving a "group interview" vibe. You queue up to confirm your identity information with the agent, who will check you in on their system and send you an email with a link to apply. Then you go in to view the house. You only have 15 minutes. You can ask the agent questions on the spot or contact them by email or phone afterwards.

Submitting an Application Submitting an application is the most time-consuming, and for someone like me who dislikes administrative tasks, it's torturous. Different agents may use different application platforms. For example, 2Apply requires filling in about 100 items across 13 sections. The most tedious part is detailing your rental history and employment over the past 2-3 years, including proof of income and identity. Fortunately, the same agent platform saves your application materials, so you don’t have to start from scratch, just update certain parts.

Before writing the application, I read lots of tips. Realestate even provides a letter template. In summary, your application materials should demonstrate that you have the financial capability to afford the rent, stable income, a clean rental history, that you’ll take care of the property, and move in as soon as possible. Besides filling in the form, we prepared over 20 pieces of additional supporting documents each, and wrote a letter of over a thousand words to include in the email. Initially, I used the Realestate template and even made a PowerPoint. Later, I abandoned the template for a practical version using my own words (polished by ChatGPT, grammar corrected by Grammarly), which I included in the self-introduction section of the application form. Even followed a friend's suggestion to add an English name to the self-introduction (while still using our Chinese names on the official application) since our Chinese name spellings are quite a challenge for locals. Whether it worked or not, we threw everything we had at it.

Agent Selection and Background Check After submitting the application, you just wait for the agent to select and conduct a background check, and they will email all the contacts you've provided to verify your experience.

I'll stop here due to word limit, the last part will be updated later.