Rental questions

[ngl2010]

I had/have 2 Japanese tenants and 1 Korean tenant so far.

One Japanese family is very neat and clean. The other family is I can’t imagine when they handover the house. And at each renewal, they usually delayed signing the new contract until last minute, asked for new things and tried to negotiate the rental down. And their monthly payment is always late!

The Korean family was the most pleasant though. Clean, neat, no demand and rented our house for so many years.

[lee_yl]

Japanese likes sushi, Korean likes Kimchi. Indian loves to cook curry and PRC cooks until kitchen oily oily.

Which is why, looking at their culinary preferences, my friend advised that the kitchen condition would be best maintained if rent to Jap tenants.

[weatherbys]

Hey MMM,

You have two ways to go about it.

1. Get your agent to do more to deserve the price you're paying
2. Tell the agent upfront that you only want partial service so will make a partial payment

For "1. Get your agent to do more to deserve the price you're paying", you can get them to:

- Negotiate the price you want, say you won't accept anything below it
- Have them deal with issues throughout the term of the tenancy, such as aircon issue 6 months later, etc. Some good agents do help throughout the length of the tenancy
- Have them trigger renewal tenant search/negotiations themselves without you having to remind. Again, good agents do this
- Of course, the paperwork
- Market on PropertyGuru to get a higher offer

For "2. Tell the agent upfront that you only want partial service so will make a partial payment"

- It is as it says. Be upfront about what you want and say you'll pay lesser for it.

Either way, you can find an agent on Propseller: https://propseller.com

They will compare agents and recommend the ones who fit your personal requirements. You can see their track records and get an upfront cost. Its free to get matched with an agent - you don't have to pay them for recommending one.

Hope that helped!

[weatherbys]

Not true.

My frd gave exclusivity to one agent, Market one whole year, no buyers & suggest to reduce asking price of abt $20K. I didn’t know but stepped in to suggest she open out to other agents. In fact agent suggested to improve response, my frd shld spend money to ‘stage’ and spruce up so it looks nice & designer. Just as sparks suggested, it’s a tenant/buyer’s mkt. When my frd open up to other agents - 3 to work concurrently, the flat was sold within 3 mths of appointing these three agents. When these 3 agents stepped in, they all (separately w/o knowing the other agent’s given same assignment) advises my frd to put up asking price close to mkt rate. In fact, my frd sold at mkt rate with small profit. We only threw away mismatched furniture & make it clean, look spacious & neat. Wall painted up only (this always works whether to attract for rental or for buyers.

Yep but agent quality really matters for exclusivity. Giving it to the wrong one can have a really bad impact. When having multiple, it is more likely to sell, that's true. But they would be competing with each other for getting the commission at all. So while they might sell, they might get you a lower price than you wish cause they want to be the fastest to find the buyer. The incentives are just not aligned.

There's this book called Freakonomics (I'm sure you've heard of it). They get data on day to day things and draw conclusions on behaviour. Agents keep their own properties on the market for 10 days longer and get a higher price than for their clients. It's because of their incentives. Making $10k more for client might mean $100 bucks more for the agent, but selling their own house means it's $10k. So incentives really matter. And with multiple agents, the incentives aren't in favour of the client in terms of getting the best price.

Having said that, I agree with you that giving exclusive to a bad agent is even worse. Ideal world is exclusive but motivated and good agent.

[sparks]

Just to share (since lee_yl has asked). My unit is also in River valley & I've managed to find a tenant in Dec at a price I wanted & the tenant type I like despite multiple agents telling me that it's not achievable in this current market. Many showed me URA stats in the hope of persuading me to rent at a lower price. But I believe every unit is different. Many owners leave it to the agents to do the viewings & marketing. For me, I personally market the unit & cleaned & tidy up the house for viewing, screening all agents who called me for viewings & filter out those who do not meet my expectations. I will also go for the viewing personally (only a few actually after filtering out most of them), ensuring lights are turned on & rooms smell fresh (good impression makes a difference!). It may sound like a lot of work you have to put in, it's really not that much except the hassle of answering a LOT of enquiries. Agents with access to direct tenants want to work with owners directly so that they earn the full commission.

The interesting point that I want to share with you is that the agent who closed the rental for my unit, came to know about my unit from my online ad because the tenant's friend recommended tenant to look for a unit around river valley road. Tenant's agent told me that she would not have thought of bringing him to see river valley area if not for his request. Now the popular areas to show is the marina bay area, she said.

I am happy that the URA stats has now been revised in my favour so that no agents will come tell me that it's not possible! Hope this gives you some perspective. Good luck!

[sparks]

My tenant once damaged my sofa cushions (2 big ones) and he pay for them. Either every night he slept on the sofa or his child jumped on the spring often.

Heng, I managed to find a factory in Ang Mo Kio industrial park 1 blk 4002, that repairs sofa cushions at $100 each.

Can you please share this contact? Thanks!

[floppy]

My tenant once damaged my sofa cushions (2 big ones) and he pay for them. Either every night he slept on the sofa or his child jumped on the spring often.

Heng, I managed to find a factory in Ang Mo Kio industrial park 1 blk 4002, that repairs sofa cushions at $100 each.

Can you please share this contact? Thanks!

AMK Industrial Park 1 4002 only got :

Kia Meng Trading

[sparks]

Oh, thanks floppy!

[lee_yl]

Just to share (since lee_yl has asked). My unit is also in River valley & I've managed to find a tenant in Dec at a price I wanted & the tenant type I like despite multiple agents telling me that it's not achievable in this current market. Many showed me URA stats in the hope of persuading me to rent at a lower price. But I believe every unit is different. Many owners leave it to the agents to do the viewings & marketing. For me, I personally market the unit & cleaned & tidy up the house for viewing, screening all agents who called me for viewings & filter out those who do not meet my expectations. I will also go for the viewing personally (only a few actually after filtering out most of them), ensuring lights are turned on & rooms smell fresh (good impression makes a difference!). It may sound like a lot of work you have to put in, it's really not that much except the hassle of answering a LOT of enquiries. Agents with access to direct tenants want to work with owners directly so that they earn the full commission.

The interesting point that I want to share with you is that the agent who closed the rental for my unit, came to know about my unit from my online ad because the tenant's friend recommended tenant to look for a unit around river valley road. Tenant's agent told me that she would not have thought of bringing him to see river valley area if not for his request. Now the popular areas to show is the marina bay area, she said.

I am happy that the URA stats has now been revised in my favour so that no agents will come tell me that it's not possible! Hope this gives you some perspective. Good luck!

Thanks Sparks for your sharing. But mine is not at River Valley. Is River Valley area still a popular choice for Japanese tenants?

May I know how long you needed to market your unit? December seems like a quiet month to me too. What the other agents did (showing you the past transactions) was not wrong as some landlords/sellers pricing may be unrealistic.

Actually I did the same thing as you, I tidy up the whole place myself, even got the marble flooring polished. I was present for every viewing too. I switched on lightings and air conditioning for the whole unit. I have 2 units in the same development and they were both taken within a month of marketing (last year). But this year, since mid Feb until now, my hp only rang twice. I notice some units have been advertising longer than mine, maybe Feb is a quiet month (due to CNY).

[sparks]

Oh, sorry, I may have misread your posting. All I know is my condo has a high percentage of Japanese living there. River valley used to be popular with Japanese but now there have been so many new developments. So, it may have changed.

I had an offer that starts a few days after my lease ends. But it was way below my asking so I turned it down. Then I decided to do some repainting and change curtains, covers, etc (which are due anyway). I have been doing this long enough to have a feel of the rental price I can get. In fact, no one, not even agents themselves, knows how high the rental can go (low is easy for sure!). So, many will market based on ura stats which is average agent-marketed properties imo. Many agents have indeed told me that I'm unrealistic. I was even contemplating lowering my asking vs opportunity cost of waiting. Then my present tenant came and offered my asking rent. Maybe, it's just luck. But for me, getting to know as many agents with direct tenants that fit my tenant profile and maintaining contact with them is crucial to securing good rentals. This is just my view and experience.

Hope it wil be a good period for you now that all festivities are over.