In 2015 I went for my exchange semester to Taipei, the capital city of Taiwan. My original idea was to find a room when I am in the country. However by accident I discovered that you can already find an amazing long-term place to stay from abroad. I will give you some tips how to find housing abroad. Those tips aren’t only related to Taipei or Taiwan but can be used for other countries as well.
Jennifer, Zhang and me
1. Connect with local people
The best way is to let other people in the country find a room for you. Nowadays this is really easy to do. There are Facebook groups where you can connect with local people. Even some Facebook groups are specified in renting rooms. In my case I had the university, and a friend of mine in the Netherlands knew a Taiwanese girl and connected me with her.
2. Browse renting websites
I found my room because I browsed some rental places online. The university gave me some websites that I could use to find a room. By looking on those websites I found the perfect room for me; cheap, not too far from the center, but far enough to be not too busy and also have a local experience.
3. Keep talking with people
I know it can feel unsafe to rent a room from a stranger, you met online, while you are in another country. However start this conversation with this person and ask all the questions you have. By connecting with the person and ask critical questions you can discover if this person is speaking the truth. Also ask for pictures and if you will live together with other people ask if the landlord can connect you with one of those people to ask for their experience.
Hopefully you are able to find a room by yourself now, while you aren’t in that country yet. Just connect with people and it should be easy enough to find some housing. I managed to find in this way my place to stay in Taiwan, in Ghana and in London all arranged from the Netherlands. And I never regretted the place that I rented. All the best with your search!
Graveyard behind my house
