Rent in Singapore for Foreigners
Getting your desirable home in Singapore
If you’re going to work or study in Singapore, you definitely need to stay somewhere. Renting an apartment in Singapore is, unfortunately, not simple. You must go through several steps and pay attention to the rules. I know that a lot of sites provide very good explanation on apartment rent process in Singapore, but I believe that sharing my personal experience might help you understand better on how the process goes. Enjoy my writing!
What to Consider
There are many things to consider before you start to rent an apartments. While many sites have described the considerations clearly (price, location, air conditioner, distance to MRT, no. of rooms, etc.), I want to highlight things I find important but not mentioned much.
1. Unit vs. Room
You can rent a whole unit or only a room, sharing the unit with other tenants. It would be great if you can find friends who are willing to rent a whole unit together. For example, I rent a 2-bedroom unit with a friend and each of us occupies separate rooms. That way, we don’t have awkwardness when we share the kitchen, washing machine, etc.
If you are alone, the good option is either to rent a 1-bedroom condo unit or a condo/HDB room. For renting a room, you will share the unit with other tenants, depending on the no. of rooms leased by the owner. There are two types of room: master room (has a bathroom inside) and common room. It might be best if you stay at a unit that’s not occupied by the owner to avoid conflicts.
2. HDB vs. Condo
HDB apartment is maintained by the government, while condominium is not. This is probably why in general, HDB is much cheaper. The biggest difference is that most condominiums offer free swimming pool. Facilities like gym are also nearer at condo.
Besides the price, one agent told me that renting HDB requires a lot of checking for foreign tenants. There might be a lot of listings on the internet, but that does not mean they are 100% percent available for foreigners. HDB imposes race and foreigner quota on each building. Condominium, on the other hand, is absolutely free from those restrictions.
3. Location and Price
The more rooms the unit has, the more expensive it will be. Location matters a lot as well. You might work in the city center (e.g. Orchard), but I think you do not want to rent a unit there cause it’s crazily expensive. As an example, my office is in Kent Ridge. Some co-workers rent houses at Buona Vista, but the price for 2-bedroom is $2300-$2500 per month. The other choice is to rent at Clementi which is a bit further. 2-bedroom units cost $1800–$2000 and 3-bedroom units range from $2600 to $3000. Note that this is the price range for HDB, not for condominium 😄.
In general, one person might spend around $800-$1500 monthly just for the house and utility bills alone. Of course for some foreigners, this price is way too high. I mean, if I live in Indonesia and that’s the price of Indonesia’s property, my salary would be around $1300 and I’ll spend 70% of my salary just for rent 😰.
4. Payment Method
This is for me the most important one. Ask your agent/owner about the accepted payment methods!
If you’re a foreigner, the easiest way is to pay by cash, but most agents/owners reject it (like mine) because it’s not traceable. There’s this guide where you can make a cash deposit to a POSB/DBS account without requiring a card/bank account. Note that you cannot create a bank account before you get your EP. It would be much better if you have friends in Singapore who are willing to do the transfer for you first.
Steps
This should provide the best information on how to secure an apartment: https://www.ezproperty.sg/guide/renter. There are other sites as well. Explaining here would be redundant, please google it by yourself 😃.
Strategies
Everyone definitely has different strategies on how to secure an apartment. If your company provides temporary stay until you get an apartment, that’d be very, very helpful. I heard some companies give 1–4 weeks free accommodation and you can find apartments in this period. Unfortunately, some companies don’t (including mine). Instead, they offer “relocation bonus fee” and let you figure out by yourself. You can also start viewing apartments before or after getting IPA.
This is a story of my senior who is searching for a master room.
The goal was to start working on 26th. I came to Singapore with IPA on 17th, viewing apartments until 21st, and then moved in on 22th. While viewing apartments, I was staying at an Airbnb. I paid everything in cash. I also did not use an agent.
My apartment searching strategy was different. My roommate and I came to Singapore one month before I start working to view apartments (2-bedroom). The reason is that NUS school year is going to start, and we were concerned that Clementi apartments might be sold out. We spent three days for viewing meeting two agents and luckily found an owner who’s willing to wait 2 weeks until our EPs are approved. We paid the deposit money by bank transfer (using friend’s help in Singapore) after our IPAs are approved and paid the rest after arriving in Singapore.
My Personal Experience
Here are the summary of my apartment rent timeline.
- Searching: Early July
- Viewing: 30th July — 1st August
- Letter of Intent: 21st August
- Tenancy Agreement: 27th August
Searching
My office is located at 2 Science Park Drive Avenue, Kent Ridge. It is very near to Buona Vista, but HDBs around there are expensive. I’ve talked to some seniors who are living in Singapore, and they recommend Clementi which will take 4 stations to the office. HDBs around there cost ~2000 SGD for 2-bedroom unit and ~2600 SGD for 3-bedroom unit.
I use https://www.propertyguru.com.sg/ and https://www.99.co/ as my two primary sites for finding apartments. I planned to rent a 2-bedroom unit and my budget is 2000 SGD/month. Most of the units there, however, are represented by agents. Indeed, agent fee is quite huge. For 1-year lease, it will cost half of monthly fee, GST not included (example: 2000 SGD monthly => 1070 SGD as agent fee). Nonetheless, as I was clueless on how rent works, I think it’s worth it. We contact each apartment’s agent via WhatsApp. I planned to meet 3 agents, but the last one did not give further response. So yeah, meeting 2 agents on my 3-day Singapore trip (30th July — 1st August)!
Viewing
I met Agent A and Agent B on two different days. Agent A was very generous. We stayed at a cheap hotel in Geylang and she offered to pick us up there by car and take us to Clementi. FYI, Geylang is far from Clementi (by car like 30 minutes). We were really blessed. She showed us 4 apartments, 3 in Clementi and 1 in Buona Vista.
Overall, her apartments in Clementi are nice. Every house in Clementi has essential things like washing machine, microwave, and refrigerator. Each also has the same layout (shown on the above picture, left). One of them stood out as it was newly painted and only 7-minute walk to MRT station. The main bedroom has a double bed and the other bedroom has two single beds. The last one in Buona Vista was really bad. The toilet and the shower rooms are separated. There is also no washing machine and microwave, but it indeed matched our budget.
The next day, we met Agent B that only showed one house. She did not pick us up, probably because Geylang is miles away 😅. We took an MRT from Kallang to Clementi. This house is a bit far from the MRT station, approximately 13-minute walk. However, it also stood out. Not only newly painted, both bedrooms have double bed, thus more convenient if our parents plan to visit us later. It’s also complete just like the previous Clementi houses. Funnily, Agent B often highlighted that the owner is also Malay. I’m not sure how a Malay owner will be any better just because we are also Malay 🐊.
After 2 days of viewing, our choices are narrowed down to 2 choices: Agent A’s nicest house or Agent B’s house. Agent A’s might be a better choice considering the location. However, we have an issue with securing the unit. We don’t have our EPs yet. Securing a unit requires the tenant to create LOI.
Agent A said LOI can be written with only passport identity and 2000 SGD deposit. The worst case is, if our IPAs are rejected, the money will be gone. On the other hand, Agent B was really generous that she will hold the unit from sale for 2 weeks until our EPs got approved. We were quite confident that the EPs are going to be approved, but in order to avoid the worst case, we chose Agent B’s house. Agent A actually gave last offer to give back the money if EPs are rejected. but we believed that it’s still risky.
The next three weeks, with god’s blessings, our EPs were approved and we got our IPAs 😄. We negotiated the price with my agent’s help and we ended up at 1900 SGD as the final price.
Letter of Intent
Our agent prepared the Letter of Intent (LOI) for us. Unlike the tenancy agreement, this letter should be simple to read. The most important thing in the letter is Tenant’s Requirements. You can state whatever you wish before the handover and signing. It can be as general as first cleaning or first round service of AC, or new materials like new mattresses.
I would say that you need to be explicit about your requirements. I personally requested two new mattresses. Later after TA signing, the owner gave me two mattresses, one is a spring bed and the other is a foam bed. This was quite disappointing as I dislike foam bed, but the owner indeed fulfilled what I needed: two new mattresses. Thankfully, my friend is fine with it and he will use the foam bed.
After the LOI was prepared, I paid the good faith deposit ($1900) to the owner’s bank account and signed the LOI. At that time, I was still in Indonesia and I used my friend’s help in Singapore to do a bank transfer. The agent gave me the scanned copy of the LOI, then I signed it and gave the copy back to the agent. The next two days, the owner accepted our LOI. Now, the only thing left is the tenancy agreement!
Tenancy Agreement (TA)
We chose 27th August as the date of handover and tenancy agreement signing. Before handover, I once again used my friend’s help to make the security deposit payment to the owner. After arriving at the house, we met both agents (ours and the owner’s) for the TA signing. Besides the TA, there was also another document which was inventory list. Upon rent completion, the house’s inventories will be checked back based on the list.
Some important things that I learn from the TA:
- We get 30-days guarantee to report any damage on the property. Any damage reported on this period should be changed by the owner without any charge. For my case, my bed was uncomfortable because the new mattress was actually an old secondary mattress. The bed frame was also bent. I quickly reported it and got the new ones soon.
- After the 30-days guarantee period, for every item that is broken, the tenants need to pay maximum $150. As an example: I broke the lamp and it costs $40. Therefore, I need to pay it myself. If the washing machine is broken and it costs $200, then I need to “only” pay $150 and the owner will pay the other $50.
- The case for air conditioner is different. Tenants need to service the air conditioner every three months. If the AC is broken but the tenants have never missed the service, the owner is responsible for the AC. Else, tenants need to replace it.
- If my rent ends less than 1 year, then I will lose the whole security deposit and need to pay the owner’s agent fee (pro-rated depending on no. of rental months left).
Overall, the house is nice as it has been repainted. I’d personally prefer the wall to be at least covered with wallpaper because the bricks of the wall can be seen clearly. The house’s furnitures are quite old as well. There were too many wooden cabinets as well, but those cannot be moved 😢. This is the only house that offers a table for each room. We really need these because we heavily use our laptops. Every appliance works great: microwave, fridge, water heater, etc.
I do have some feelings that this was a really basic house for my standard, especially for $1900 monthly 😿. But trust me, I’ve gone through many houses and all of them are worse in terms of the furnitures’ condition. So yeah, I need to stay in this comfortable yet old house for 1 year.
Conclusion
Rent is very expensive in Singapore. We spent $5000 (split for two people) just for the first month of rent. Renting in Singapore is bound to a contract for a period of time, so ensure that you really want to pay for the house. Go research about the process and pay attention to the rules so that you’re not tricked by the owner/agent.
Next time, I’ll write about the environment in Singapore HDB in general. Good luck with your house renting journey!
