Rent an office in a new office building in Shanghai?

Having your office in a new office building is somehow nice and there are a lot of new office buildings in Shanghai.  But if you are one of the first companies there, some things might not work in a perfect way, but a professional property management should take care of everything.

But still, as foreign company, you should think twice, before you rent an office in a building, when you are the first foreign company to register there. The owner or property manager of the building probably never heard about the papers you need to register your WFOE and they are quite annoyed and sometimes not really willing to cooperate to provide you with the necessary documents.

Especially for small and middle sized enterprises, it is better to move into a building with other foreign companies anyway (e.g. SOHO in Shanghai). Not only because of the western toilets in office buildings aiming on foreign companies but also because of opportunities to get in contact with other foreign companis for later cooperations.