Rental negotiable

[erikpatsg]

Hi all, my girlfriend and I have recently arrived in Singapore and we're planning to rent a condo or apartment soon. A lot of the ads however quote a price and then put negotiable next to it. For instance 3.2K neg. My question is what is normal practice in these cases? Do you offer 10, 15 , 20 percent less? Does anybody have an idea about this negotiation game ?

Thanks
Erik

[sundaymorningstaple]

Quite often you will find you are shown apartments in bunches. You are advised to take you checkbook with you as negotiations usually mean bidding war and the price will escalate not decrease. Having said that, they are starting back off somewhat from the frenzy of 6 months ago.

Otherwise, there is no rule of thumb here as the whole property market is a crapshoot.

[Strong Eagle]

SMS is right. "Negotiations" often means "I've decided to raise my price, take it or leave it."

Demand is high enough right now that you may indeed run into another potential renter willing to trump your offer.

[durain]

it's a tenant market at the moment. when you start viewing a few properties, you will get a feel of the prices you are paying and start comparing between them. if you are not comfortable with the prices, walk away. there are a lot of properties on the market at the moment.

[frenzal]

SMS is right. "Negotiations" often means "I've decided to raise my price, take it or leave it."

Demand is high enough right now that you may indeed run into another potential renter willing to trump your offer.

in the other thread, weren't people saying that vacancies are very high?

[quidsin]

I totally agree with Durain. This is now a tenants market, prices are starting to fall....

[erikpatsg]

SMS is right. "Negotiations" often means "I've decided to raise my price, take it or leave it."

Demand is high enough right now that you may indeed run into another potential renter willing to trump your offer.

Indeed that did happen a month ago when we were looking for a short term lease, there was another couple also looking at the same apartment. We walked away. I don't like to get my arm twisted.... Luckily we ended up with something much better.

[sundaymorningstaple]

I totally agree with Durain. This is now a tenants market, prices are starting to fall....

I think, if you will do some investigations, that you will find that is not entirely true. They aren't "falling" per se, but the increases have tapered off to a more realistic amount or are "stagnant" meaning they are not moving.

[ksl]

I totally agree with Durain. This is now a tenants market, prices are starting to fall....

I think, if you will do some investigations, that you will find that is not entirely true. They aren't "falling" per se, but the increases have tapered off to a more realistic amount or are "stagnant" meaning they are not moving.

Stagnant is the word, it will take a few more months yet to see which way it will flow!

[rchdk]

3 couples I know have all been house shopping within the last couple of months and they have all gotten a deal between 10 and 20% below the asking price - so yes, prices are negotiable downwards.

[road.not.taken]

Hi all, my girlfriend and I have recently arrived in Singapore and we're planning to rent a condo or apartment soon. A lot of the ads however quote a price and then put negotiable next to it. For instance 3.2K neg. My question is what is normal practice in these cases? Do you offer 10, 15 , 20 percent less? Does anybody have an idea about this negotiation game ?

Thanks
Erik

Are you not working with an agent? It's a very big part of their job to advise you on this exact thing. I'd say, even with the current topsy-turvy market, 10% is not an unreasonable counter offer but 25% would be insulting. It varies greatly from owner to owner, so a basic rule for negotiation is very hard to apply. We've made offers on places that were empty for a year, only to be turned down because 'that was much too low an offer.' Come to find out three years later, it was still empty. Sometimes the simple laws of math don't even apply.

[andy21]

According to Urban Redevelopment Authority quarterly statistics on rentals in developments with at least 100 units and with at least 10 rental contracts signed in the quarter, rentals in such developments in the first quarter of 2008 are barely changed from Q4 2007.

The number of contracts signed is not specified though, for that you have to pay (as usual) but I'd reckon the numbers are softer than Q4 2007.

But the actual rental prices are effectively unchanged.

Maybe because every single homeowner is being advised by their agent to wait because someone will come along soon enough to pay them a million dollars a month for their dwelling. And when rentals start to fall, these same homeowners will ask their agents what went wrong and get the equiavalent of a con artist going uncontactable.

[erikpatsg]

Just a quick update on this topic. We just rented a condo in Parc Vista next to the Lakeside MRT. We offered 15 percent below the asking price and got it just like that... So it seems the market is faaalling... and you'll be able to get "good" deals, although it is still very expensive if you ask me.

[sundaymorningstaple]

15% off the asking price is not "rentals are falling" if the asking price was 50% more than the landlord was receiving on the last lease. It just means you got him to come down on his asking price. Unless, of course, you were able to document the last lease amount being the same as the asking price offered to you.

This just means the market is "softening". As of yet, rental are not decreasing from former lease levels.

[Forks]

Having just been through this the further you are away from the center of town the cheaper they get and the less demand for places there will be, also out of the main areas you can still get places which are cheap enough not to break the bank if your willing to hold on. Also when rents are over a certain price you dont have to pay the agents fee which is 2.5K if I rem correctly so dont be fooled. But you will have to pay a Bond of one month, and one months rent in advance, or 2 if its a 2 year lease so it can still be costly to setup. I did my own looking around and looked in the paper and also on this forum and if you can avoid the agents (hard but not impossible) you can save money and time as agents want to get expats into the most expensive place possible so pick a price range and stand on it, dont let yourself be forced over your price range, just make sure its a decent range but youll soon have an idea what that is, also do spend some time looking before you settle as different areas have different prices and its not blanket.