The following information have been researched and compiled by local and international volunteers (Sophia, Cassidy, Yolanda, and Chris) in order to help international students with finding their own home away from home in Taipei.
Recommended Areas to Seek For Your Own Cozy Off-Campus Place:
This map should be relatively familiar to you, in case you have already made your very first few steps around the city:
Most students at NCCU prefer to live in neighborhoods located in close proximity to our school, or at least in close reach when commuting via MRT. Thus, many recommend to live in areas along the brown line. To be more precise, this would specifically include the MRT stations starting from Taipei Zoo Station all the way to Wanfang Hospital.
It takes around 30 minutes from NCCU to get to Taipei City Hall, and approximately 40 minutes to go to Gongguan. We suggest therefore that you do not live any farther away than those two indicated stations (consider them as the maximum outskirts of the advised area) in order to be able to commute back and forth NCCU and your home without a hassle.
An important factor to keep in mind when looking for your own apartment/room is also that the rent will actually increase the closer your place is to one of the MRT stations. Hence, it may be advisable to accept a 5 to 10 minutes walk to the nearest MRT station and thereby saving a couple of 100ntds per month.
Our school is located in Wenshan District. Be aware that although the different districts might look quite close to one another on the map, it actually takes a relatively long time to get to other parts of Taipei. We would for this very reason suggest that you make Wenshan District your prioritized area for your house-hunting.
Besides, the districts located in the heart of Taipei, such as Xinyi District, Daan District, and even some places in Zhongzheng District, will ask for much higher rents than commonly found in Wenshan. This is, among other things, due to the fact that they are considered business areas.
As indicated above, even within Wenshan District rent prices can vary quite greatly. Chances of striking a good apartment deal in the indicated green and yellow areas above are thus much higher than in the area marked in red.
Useful Sources and Rental Websites for Long-Term and Short-Term Housing:
It is certainly not impossible to find different kinds of apartments or housing styles in Taipei without having a thorough command of the Chinese language. The following 6 rental websites represent some of the international-friendly pages available:
1) Tealit
2) Hostelworld
3) Intaipeiapartments
4) Mangoroc
5) Rentaltw
6. Tsuei Ma-Ma Foundation for Housing and Community Services
7) Apart from that, the Borderless House website offers interested students the wonderful opportunity to live in international houses in between local Taiwanese and people from all over the world.
8) Alternatively, you also always have the choice to join multiple of the various apartment rental groups on Facebook and to try your luck there. Some of the more popular ones are; for instance:
– Taipei Taiwan Apartment Rentals:
– Looking for Roommates or Apartments in Taipei and Taiwan:
Short-Term Housing:
In case you prefer searching for places to stay while already being in Taiwan, you may require a temporary accommodation until you have found the apartment of your dreams (rather than the one of your darkest nightmares). While there aren’t many short-term housing facilities around campus, In-Stone Motel offers decent quality rooms for fair prices:
9) In-Stone Motel:
Address: No. 15, Section 2, Xiuming Road, Wenshan District, Taipei City, 116
Phone: 02 8661 7070
Sample Residential Lease Agreement:
The very last step of your journey is of course signing the residential lease agreement. This is usually a standard form which will be adopted (aside from minor adjustments) by almost every landlord in Taiwan. We did noticed that many landlords will not (be able to) provide you with an English version of the agreement (most likely due to the existing language barrier). While it is essential that you have a local person of your trust reading through the agreement prior to signing it, the following link directs you to a translated version of the most commonly used residential leasing agreement in Taiwan.
Further Assistance:
In case you do need any further assistance, please refer to the facilities offered to you on NCCU Campus. The NCCU Student Housing Section located on the 3rd floor of the Administration Building will be willing to help you.
NCCU INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION 