I have heard that the prices for apartments in Kunming are very low (even my university upperclassman said she could find a small 1000-RMB place in the school vicinity in 2009/2010) and was considering going there for 1-year studies of the Chinese language.
However, as I have read in some topics, it seems that many people say that the prices nearly doubled (!) in 2011 and it is not cheap at all these days. Is it true?

I'm going with my girlfriend to (probably) Yunnan Normal University and since they don't allow us to live together in the dormitory, we want to find an apartment. We are OK with even a very small place (just to sleep, study and occasionally cooking I guess - instead of the school dormitory, nothing more) with some basic furniture (bed would be nice :) Then a refrigerator at least, and preferably Internet connection) but would like to live somewhere near the university. Is it now real to find such a place for about 1200~1400 RMB or less?

I'm very worried about this because we don't have much money and I've started to prefer Kunming to Qingdao mainly because of the cheap rental costs of off-campus living in previous years.

Thank you very much!

There is a lot of apartment sharing and sub letting of rooms going on. Rooms come up from about 600/m.That is an option for you.

There are some apartments that come up cheap, but you need to be prepared to jump in in June-August after the end of the academic year to get a good one. Lots of people want them in September.

We would like to have a small apartment just for the two of us because of more privacy... But we can't really afford anything more expensive than about 1400 RMB/month and, well, it would be a hassle to commute to school for 40 min. or so.
The school starts on 1st September and I plan to arrive to China approximately a week in advance, so let's say from 23rd August. Do you think it would still be a good "hunting season"? To get a relatively cheap place somewhere in the school vicinity (up to 20 minutes).

Or... How can I find any approximate prices on the Internet myself?
I've tried typing 昆明租房 into Google and the first entries were
km.ganji.com/fang1/
and
km.58.com/zufang/
for example (it looks 100% the same to me...). Are these websites OK? Just for an approximate information.
And what district is the place where Yunnan Shifan Daxue foreign students are being taught Chinese? 五华?

shida is in the 五华 district, on 建设路 and 一二一路, streets pretty nearby are for exmaple 虹山南 or虹山东路,文林街,xuefulu (sorry, not sure about the characters) is also not too far away...just to give you a small idea of where to look. the most popular way to find an apartment in kunming is still through agencies. there are hundreds of them everywhere, but they will charge you a 1 month rent (or less, if you bargain) for their help (when i looked for an apartment i checked several websites as well, but most of them were actually attatched to agencies as well). i screened some agency windows on my way to shida today, seems like there are some 1200kuai flats available, about 50sqm i think, dont know whether they are furnished or not. but considering the budget you are on you need to be aware, that a 1200-1400kuai apartment will probably be pretty old, might not come with a western toilet and you will spend at least one weekend of cleaning before moving in. on the other hand-not relly a big differnce to the shida dorms.

Thank you!
I know about the agencies, but as I would like to compare at least approximate prices of apartments to Qingdao, I want at least some prices on the Internet... Cleaning for a weekend is OK, and small apartment doesn't really matter (as you say yourself, this point isn't really differ from dorms), I just want it to be livable, have a refrigerator, a large bed/2 normal beds and preferably Internet connection... Though an European style WC would be good as well.
I'll look at the districts you mentioned on the websites at least. Thank you!

If someone has any other comments, I'd be glad to read them!