China - Where to stay in Shanghai?

We have always stayed with relatives when we come over here. It looks like that's not going to be viable in the future and so we are looking at other alternatives.

What would be ideal is if we could rent a place with as much of the stuff of day-to-day life as feasible and we also would like to find some sort of small storage place to leave stuff between visits.

(We are both US citizens although she is Shanghai-born and speaks/reads/writes at native level.)

Where should we look for such a place?

Depends on where your network is, and how much you want to pay. Shanghai is a big city. You need to provide more info to get your questions answered.

we also would like to find some sort of small storage place to leave stuff between visits.

Google loveboxstorage.
There may be cheaper options around, but I have yet to find a better and more reliable storage option in Shanghai.

Try VRBO.com, vacation rental by owner. Don't know if they have any Shanghai listings. I used this website to rent an apartment for 5 nights in Barcelona in 2009. Cost less than a hotel.

I opted for the Park Hyatt during our 48hr stay in Shanghai....

C-trip has apartment options by SH locations. Also some hotels can store your bags overnight, about 10 rmb per bag , per night.

BTW, sometimes the C-trip hotel 'deals' at the western hotels do not allow for the stay nights/points. ie HH, etc.

Google loveboxstorage.
There may be cheaper options around, but I have yet to find a better and more reliable storage option in Shanghai.

Thank you, that appears to be the sort of info I was after although I'll have to get her here to read it.

Try VRBO.com, vacation rental by owner. Don't know if they have any Shanghai listings. I used this website to rent an apartment for 5 nights in Barcelona in 2009. Cost less than a hotel.

airyizu is the local option, and both airyizu and vrbo are clones of airbnb. Of the 3, airyizu is the only one I would trust for China (there are some insane listings on airbnb... like shacks "a mere 100 km from Tiananmen Square"). The problem there is that they focus almost solely on serviced apartments (due to difficulties getting private landlords to perform PSB registration formalities), and serviced apartments aren't appreciably cheaper than comparable hotels (high occupancy rates). Still worth a look, perhaps. Also check out the major serviced apartment companies themselves (Ascott, Marriott, Shanghai Centre, etc).