HDB flatsharing

[JR8]

After having read a post on the 'Average Salaries' topic by Varungupta I got to thinking.

He is moving to SG and will be on a quite tight budget. He is looking at paying rent of about $800/m to rent a room in an HDB flat.

But how possible might it be for someone in his shoes, if he had the interest, to rent a whole unit with say 3 bedrooms, and then sub-let 2 rooms for materially more than 2/3rds of the rent? I.e after voids, and incidental costs having acting as the landlord help to subsidise his own rent.

I appreciate that many Tenancy Agreements apparently have no sub-letting clauses, but then again a lot of people live in flatshares. Is one to assume these flatshares are always headed by an owner-occupier landlord, or are they illegal, or a mixture of the two?


p.s. I ask as I rented a whole flat in London back in the 80s and sublet rooms, and it effectively funded the whole of my rent for 3-4 years, gave me a great financial leg-up early in my career allowing me to get on the property owning ladder a few years later.

[sundaymorningstaple]

After having read a post on the 'Average Salaries' topic by Varungupta I got to thinking.

He is moving to SG and will be on a quite tight budget. He is looking at paying rent of about $800/m to rent a room in an HDB flat.

But how possible might it be for someone in his shoes, if he had the interest, to rent a whole unit with say 3 bedrooms, and then sub-let 2 rooms for materially more than 2/3rds of the rent? I.e after voids, and incidental costs having acting as the landlord help to subsidise his own rent.

I appreciate that many Tenancy Agreements apparently have no sub-letting clauses, but then again a lot of people live in flatshares. Is one to assume these flatshares are always headed by an owner-occupier landlord, or are they illegal, or a mixture of the two?


p.s. I ask as I rented a whole flat in London back in the 80s and sublet rooms, and it effectively funded the whole of my rent for 3-4 years, gave me a great financial leg-up early in my career allowing me to get on the property owning ladder a few years later.

Flat Owners’ Responsibilities

As a flat owner subletting your flat, you will be responsible for:

Making sure the flat is sublet to eligible subtenants only

Making sure that there is no overcrowding and the number of subtenants does not exceed the maximum number allowed

Making sure that your subtenants have entered and are remaining in Singapore lawfully at all times (while the subletting is in force)

Making sure that your subtenants do not further sublet the flat to other persons

Making sure that your subtenants comply with all the covenants in the lease and the provisions of the Housing & Development Act and that you are responsible for all infringements, if any, committed by them

Informing the Comptroller of Property Tax, of the subletting approval and termination of subletting

Informing HDB of any changes in the subletting

Resuming occupation of your flat and ensuring your subtenants vacate the premises when:

The subletting is terminated, or You are no longer eligible to sublet your flat

Surrendering the flat if the flat is repossessed by HDB

http://www.hdb.gov.sg/fi10/fi10323p.nsf ... enDocument

Pretty well answers that.

[JR8]

Thanks, and yes it does.

p.s. Maybe that's the difference. In SG by default most people on a budget are restricted to government controlled HDB units, whereas in the UK (and probably many other countries) the default property to let is privately owned.

[nakatago]

Done two ways.

1. Join forces with other renters.

or

2. Tell landlord from the get go that other people will eventually join in the lease. Their details will then be given when they come.

We've done #2 (hee-hee) before. A colleague and I took a 3+1 before and told the landlord that we'll get someone to occupy the other room eventually. He agreed and just told us give that guy's details to his agent for processing and such. New guy, of course, must satisfy all requirements and follow all rules.

[zzm9980]

2. Tell landlord from the get go that other people will eventually join in the lease. Their details will then be given when they come.

We've done #2 (hee-hee) before. A colleague and I took a 3+1 before and told the landlord that we'll get someone to occupy the other room eventually. He agreed and just told us give that guy's details to his agent for processing and such. New guy, of course, must satisfy all requirements and follow all rules.

So not terribly hard to flat-share, but difficult to make some cash on it like JR did since it is assumed the third guy would be signing on to the original TA, and thus would see the rent cost.

[the lynx]

2. Tell landlord from the get go that other people will eventually join in the lease. Their details will then be given when they come.

We've done #2 (hee-hee) before. A colleague and I took a 3+1 before and told the landlord that we'll get someone to occupy the other room eventually. He agreed and just told us give that guy's details to his agent for processing and such. New guy, of course, must satisfy all requirements and follow all rules.

So not terribly hard to flat-share, but difficult to make some cash on it like JR did since it is assumed the third guy would be signing on to the original TA, and thus would see the rent cost.

That if you're assuming that the main tenant is trying to earn some money...

[zzm9980]

2. Tell landlord from the get go that other people will eventually join in the lease. Their details will then be given when they come.

We've done #2 (hee-hee) before. A colleague and I took a 3+1 before and told the landlord that we'll get someone to occupy the other room eventually. He agreed and just told us give that guy's details to his agent for processing and such. New guy, of course, must satisfy all requirements and follow all rules.

So not terribly hard to flat-share, but difficult to make some cash on it like JR did since it is assumed the third guy would be signing on to the original TA, and thus would see the rent cost.

That if you're assuming that the main tenant is trying to earn some money...

Well yeah, I was Which is why I said "So not terribly hard to flat-share, but difficult to make some cash. It's a great proposition if you can swing it like JR did. I have a few friends that do this very same thing in the states. One friend has a 2000sq/ft 4-bedroom house in the middle of Silicon Valley, about 1km from Google HQ. He sublets the three rooms out and it covers rent completely. He gets exclusive use of 2.5 car garage, back yard, and huge master suite. Further, there is such demand even at the rates he sublets for that he can hand-pick tenants that are rarely around, giving him almost exclusive use of the entire rest of the house.

[sundaymorningstaple]

The better way to do it here is use outlying older 3 BR condo's. They're usually larger and you can probably grab one for around 3~3.5K and maybe, if the BRs are big enough and airconned you could sub out for say 1.5K each for the other BRs. Who knows (of course you would need to clear it with the LL).

[beppi]

In Singapore, in general, rents for rooms are about the same as flat rent divided by number of rooms. Making money there is difficult (and in my opinion also ethically dubious).
I shared flats and houses (mostly, before they became unaffordable) for many years and usually was the main tenant - but we made it clear to the landlord from the beginning that this is a sharing situation.
We also shared the rent equally (I paid a bit more for the master room).
This gave some interesting situations when looking for replacement tenants: Many wanted to negotiate the rent, so we just said "Since we share, what can you bring to the table that justifies us others pay more and you less?" They usually retreated very quickly.