3 Ways To Rent A Place In Singapore

Renting a place is not uncommon in Singapore. You can be a foreigner residing in Singapore for work or study purposes, or you can be a Singaporean awaiting your BTO home to be ready, looking for a place to stay at in the meantime. No matter what the reason is for wanting to rent a home in Singapore, I am here to guide you on the available options of renting. What do I mean by this?

Typically, if you would like to rent a home or a room, you will be searching through property portals like Propertyguru, 99.co, Oh My Home, Stacked Homes and many others. These online property portals allow you to browse and filter the listings to suit your preferences. You can either rent a home or room from a property agent or directly from the landlord. However, there is another option for you and that is to rent from a property management company. So what are the pros and cons of renting directly from a landlord, from an agent and from a property management company?

Renting direct from landlord

Renting direct from landlord means that you will need to contact the landlord directly and arrange for viewing at a mutually agreed date and time. You will also need to negotiate with the landlord yourself. If it is your first time renting directly from a landlord, I recommend downloading the following checklist to have an idea on your rights and what can you negotiate for as a potential tenant. Renting from a landlord means that you can get a direct response on whether your requests negotiated can be met or not. On top of that, there are no commission fees to pay. You will just have to pay the first month's rental fee and the security deposit, which are refundable upon end of lease.

Renting from a property agent

Renting from a property agent can mean that you are either sourcing your rental unit yourself and securing the unit through the landlord’s agent, or you are engaging an agent to assist in sourcing rental units for you.

Landlord’s agent

If you are sourcing the rental units yourself through the home portals available and chanced upon an agent advertising the rental units, these agents are representing the landlords. Thus, negotiations will be through the agents and often communication might take awhile as the agents may have to confirm with the landlords on your requests before providing you with an answer.

As the agents are representing the landlords, more often than not, they will have the landlords best interest. Again, if this is your first time renting with an agent who represents the landlord, do download the following checklist to have an idea of your rights and points you can negotiate on. Typically, if you are dealing directly with the landlord’s agent, there is no need for you to pay the agent fees. However, there can be times where the agent may request you to pay agent fees, should the lease tenure you request for is less than 2 years. In such a case, you may wish to consider if you need the rental unit urgently, especially if you find that the unit fits your preferences in terms of the location and available amenities.

Your Own Agent

If you are engaging an agent to assist you in sourcing for rental units, the agent is representing you and will be the one to help you negotiate directly with the landlord or with the landlord’s agent. You can be assured that your agent will have your best interest and will negotiate based on your requests. For this case, once the transaction is completed, you will need to pay your agent the commission.

Another benefit of having an agent acting on your behalf is that any paperwork will be done up for you such as the Letter Of Intent (LOI). Thus, you need not prepare any Letter Of Intent (LOI) on your own.

Property management companies

Property management companies are on the rise, which are companies who either lease the property units or own the units for rental. Dealing with a property management company is similar to dealing with the landlord directly. Thus, there is no commission fee involved. Typically, since they are a company, they will have a more professional approach such as processes, documentation, explaining the framework of what to expect, house rules etc. Property management companies usually include weekly housekeeping or other perks and benefits for renting a unit with them.

Here is a simple infographics to summarize the above information