Affordable Homes for Expatriates
Ref: 805051

HAVE YOU GOT A TENANT?

"Have you got a Tenant?" This is the most FAQ (frequently asked question) of first-time Singaporean Landlord who advertises directly as "Owner" in the Singapore Straits Times' Property Classifieds. Many get impatient after answering the many telephone queries. The first-timer seems to think that his/her unit will definitely qualify whenever there is an enquiry. There is much more than an Owner's advertisement to close a deal and this will be covered in the other articles in www.asiahomes.com as rental housing is a massive topic.

This report is written to benefit first-time Owners as many are ignorant
of the rental system practised by Singapore realtors. Some tips to
new housing agents are included to help them in the new venture.

Tenants come from the following sources:

1. Straits Times Classified Advertisements (Properties for Rent) by Realtors and a few Owners. For new housing agents, do be careful as some advertisers masquerade as "Owners" and may be a conducting a scam. Others are honest and call themselves "Owners' Rep". The Straits Times is still the top dog as the source of prospective tenants.

2. Corporations which employ expatriates e.g. foreign airlines like NorthWest, multi-national companies and foreign banks. Usually they have company-retained realtors who are well established in Singapore. Such realtors have "exclusive" tenants but if they cannot source the appropriate housing, they may lose out to small realty firms.

3. International realty firms. Their network overseas refer prospects to them. Examples of such firms are Jones Lang Wooton, Colliers Jardine, First Pacific Davis and Chesterton. Their "branded name" attracts prospective tenants and landlords.

4. Small realty firms. Many landlords of smaller properties e.g. a 2-bedroom condo renting for S$2,000, find the small firms more than satisfactory as they have the "tenants". The smaller firms outnumber the big boys and statistically will have more "tenants". The big boys will have the high net worth tenants looking for over $20,000 rental housing.

5. Others e.g. Chinese, Malay newspapers, magazines in Singapore, direct mail, advertisement and promotional materials from realtors and owners.

6. Referrals. A most important and inexpensive source for many housing agents who provide excellent services above and beyond what is expected of an agent.

7. Internet surfers. Overseas and from Singapore. Many use the search engines such as Yahoo, to find the websites of Singapore realtors and Owners. Few Singapore realtors bother to advertise through Internet as it is expensive to maintain an updated web site.

8. A Singapore Service Provider, Pacific Internet, a progressive company, is the only one in Singapore, smart enough to tap a most favoured adult Singaporean topic, beside censored Playboy - the property market by providing a free property advertisement service under "Classifieds" in http://www.classads.com.sg. It has at least 1,500 listings. 3 closings of Asia USA Realty come from Tenants surfing this web site and the agency commission will be sufficient to pay the fees of Pacific Internet.

9. Web sites providing Singapore information. A small number of web sites have some free property advertisements like Pacific Internet. However, it is doubtful they will be sustained in the longer term as they do not have the resources to update the sites to attract repeat visitors.

10. Web sites dedicated to Singapore property. A handful of Singaporean property web sites have been established and are defunct now. Many will fail due to lack of commitment for the long term and the high costs of maintaining the web site. You need a good, inexpensive and dedicated webmaster but there are not many inexpensive and dedicated, never mind good ones, even in the USA.

Newcomer Singapore property agents tend to embellish their web site with fanciful graphics and increase downloading times. They are unaware that the surfer is an impatient person and you have to catch his/her attention within 2 seconds. Fast downloading and quality of content will attract repeat visitors, not slick graphics.

Readers who know of other sources of getting Tenants, please email to drsing@asiahomes.com, so that we can update this article. Thank you. For the first-time landlords, most callers do have Tenants but how do you rent out your property within 2 weeks of getting the keys to your new condo? One case study will be reported in the article "How to rent fastest - Dressed to kill the New Zealander pathologist"

Ann Brocklebank

For more Information :
Dr Sing Kong Yuen

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