Property Stories

I Tried Renting Out My Own Home In Singapore: Here’s Why I Would Never Do It Again

  • October 12, 2022
  • 8 min read
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Ryan J

Ryan is an old school print journalist gone digital. He's lived in almost every type of housing in Singapore, from flats to landed homes. Over the past 18 years, he's been a content developer for companies large and small, a co-founder in an education business, and sometimes a voice on the radio. He also spends too much time and money on painting little plastic soldiers.

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Bill Tay
Bill Tay
7 months ago

I thought the standard commission is 1 month rental for a lease of 2 years?

Dom Tan
Dom Tan
7 months ago
Reply to  Bill Tay

Precisely. And you dont have to pay the agent upon renewal, you can always ask to remove that clause from TA.

Jay Lim
Jay Lim
7 months ago
Reply to  Bill Tay

Yes. Common practice for 2 years rental is 1 month for service fees.

Stacked Homes
Admin
7 months ago
Reply to  Bill Tay

He managed to get a higher rental than expected, so the higher comms was negotiated separately

Bill Tay
Bill Tay
7 months ago
Reply to  Stacked Homes

Did not seem right as 2 months rental commission is really overboard! Your article seems to dissuade homeowners from diy renting. DIY renting is not as horrendous as your article made out to be as there are successful stories too.

Stacked Homes
Admin
7 months ago
Reply to  Bill Tay

Hey Bill, the two months were negotiated due to the higher rental the agent got and it was between both parties. Market conditions may also have been different then. The story is told by someone who experienced this quite a while back, so there are elements of DIY renting today that are easier. We’ve also highlighted our tips in one of our articles (https://stackedhomes.com/editorial/a-complete-8-step-guide-to-renting-out-your-property-without-an-agent/). As it’s just an experience from someone, there would naturally be a view held by them. Moreover, it was told from a first-time landlord point of view where many problems faced such as having to deal with low-quality prospects or the actual viewings still persist today. It’s just a good reminder that there are several considerations to make before jumping into it. This is why it was mentioned at the end that if one is to do the DIY route, it’s better to learn from an agent first.

Ultra Shiny Marines
Ultra Shiny Marines
7 months ago
Reply to  Stacked Homes

Am a Landlord and would like to clarify that the commission for the agent is negotiated between the landlord and the agent. Currently it is a landlord’s market and hence the commission is typically 1 month for a 2 year lease, when the market turns it could go up to 2 months for a 2 year lease.

Stacked Homes
Admin
7 months ago

Thanks for sharing!

M B
M B
7 months ago

This is exactly what people say when you try to sell your car directly. But it’s mostly fear mongering in that case.You set yourself up to be lowballed by the car dealer bidding sites.

Anna
Anna
7 months ago

stacked homes have a number of property agents working in their midst too.
which clearly explains why this article is drumming up unnecessary fear to dissuade ppl from renting out their properties on their own.

Stacked Homes
Admin
7 months ago
Reply to  Anna

Hey Anna, we believe in providing stories and sharing information from a diverse set of articles. We’ve done articles on tackling the real estate process on your own too. If we pushed only one narrative, we wouldn’t have shared as much of our insights all these years that serve to better the decision-making by consumers by themselves – something that we felt was lacking in the market before we started our editorial.

On the flip side, this article may have saved several new landlords the potential headaches they did not foresee would occur. After all, it’s easy to jump into the proposition of saving on commissions only to realise later on just how time-consuming it could be. Finally, if we really wanted to push the narrative that you should use an agent, we could’ve found and shared a story where the commissions were less than the 2-months that M has paid, but this is not the case. We choose to share all stories that are shared with us to provide greater perspectives in the market. So we see this article as just one piece of perspective within the complicated real estate industry and we hope that our readers take into consideration everything that we’ve done so far to better the industry for consumers. Hope this clarifies!

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