I always tell myself I have to go to the gym today, just right before I put that piece of juicy and delicious fried chicken in my mouth, because I needed the exercise. Well, you cant lose weight if you don’t enough energy right? People are stubborn and get used to old habits. Landlords and surprisingly RENs included. Many still price their rentals like 3 or 4 years ago when the economy is booming and rens can go to 6 appointments in a day to close deals.  Landlords also need to wake up to the fact that the market is no longer as it is. Condos like Alam Damai used to go for RM2400 to RM2800 for fully furnished 1000sf; Now its RM1700 partly furnished to RM2200 to Fully Furnished. No longer can you expect to rent out your unit barebones, without any renovations and furnishing. You can read about how to rent out your unit fast here I used to rent out my Fairway Mansions unit with only air cons and curtains for RM1350. I dont think I would able to do so nowadays. Tenants expect more and bargained hard for their stay.

Landlord Expectations and Reality

1. Fully Furnished units for a “Jackpot” tenant
   How many times have you heard landlord says I want an Expat tenant who will pay me 20 to 30 percent more to rent from you because its coming out of the boss pocket or he or she just rich and ignorant. But how many Jackpot winners are there? Not many, so stop hoping you can land an expat, as their numbers have shrink to very low levels since the fall of the mighty OG (oil and gas sectors) or a rich ignorant brat and focus on the remaining possible tenants with realistic rentals. Any home rentals 3k and above and you are looking for a very small pool of tenants who can afford this kind of rent but have choose not to buy their own house is extremely limited. If they can afford that kind of rent; they can definitely afford to buy.
2. Barebones “Kosong” units
   “Kosong” units are getting out of fashion, 90% of tenants would not be renting if you just show them a kosong unit even if you price it competitively. Kosong unit here separates to a few categories:
   i)Memang Kosong-  meaning there is no renovation done, usually without kitchen cabinet or any furniture and fittings
   ii)Maggi Kosong – You get the noodles and seasoning but no “liao” you get the basics like Light Fixture and curtains and Air cons but without Kitchen Cabinets
   iii)Milo Ping Kosong – You get the full flavour of Chocolate drink with Ice but without condensed milk; you have your electrical fixtures and air cons and heaters without the furniture inside.

   The memang kosong units will not cut it in todays market. Period. No tenant will even bat an eyelid if it doesnt even have things like light fixtures and usually air cons and heaters as well.

   Milo Ping Kosong is the minimum you need to do if you are going to rent out as unfurnished.

3. Non negotiable because my unit is SOooooo Special
   Everything in real estate or property is negotiable, remember that. Some landlords are hoping to hold on to the old practice of holding on to their asking rental because their unit is SO00000…… Special will take so…. long to realised many renters dont care how special your unit is, as long as fits their Budget! Thank you so.. much. Example is a unit I found listed on the mudah for many months for the Bay21 condo unit. The 3 bedroom condo was renovated quite extensively with a nice swimming pool views but its not the ID magazine type quality, first listed at a whooping RM4500 fully furnished, whereas the comparatively was going for RM3k to 3.5k, thats 1k above the average. 6 months on, this same unit is going for 3.8k and still not yet rented out. 6 months if he would have rented it for RM3k then its 18k already! Well, who knows. Most of the tenants will Bargain and they Bargain hard nowadays as they know its hard to find good tenants.
4. No using any agent I can rent out myself
   Well, despite what the popularity of sites like speedrent, where they cut the middle man in this case agents  or rens , for a market like KK, Sabah, its still very much a You Know Who, who knows who Game. KK market is too unorganized and small to effective use for sites like speedrent. Its not easy to get tenants nowadays, especially quality tenants, good paymaster and take care of your house. With the daily congestion in KK, I think its not easy for the landlords to arrange viewings and do renovation and doing their own tenancy agreement. if they do at all. The right agency can help you with finding a tenant, a quality and reliable tenant and saves you a lot of trouble later on.
5. Compromise on the amount of Deposit
   Never, ever rent to people who cannot pay you the standard 2 plus 1 rental deposit! Even if you are desperate, which you should be if you invest correctly with backups like I talk about, Dont compromise on Deposits. A simple logic, if he cannot pay you a deposit now, what makes you think he can pay you next month or the month after that?
6. Dont trust agents, dont give them Keys
   If there is ever a more idiotic or annoying thing home owner does is this- they get an agent to list their property but refused to hand them the keys to their units or house. I can understand it if this a lived in house or you have very expensive equipment in there; a minimal furnished apartment with ugly furniture is not exactly worth stealing.. go figure. If you need an agent help please use them, I can’t tell you how many deals were lost because the owners stubborn refusal to give the keys to the agents so they can arrange the viewings. Real case: I have wanted to rent a property when I saw with the great views, but I could not met with the owners timing, she stubbornly refused to give the keys to the agents for an hour just to do the viewing but insisted she will be the only ones holding it; I ended up renting another unit in the same building same block same price but with an exception, I was able to view it!
7. Supply exceed demands
   Condos and apartments will have a much tougher time to rent out as the sheer no of incoming supply far exceeds the demand. A few condos that just or about to received OCs , The gardens (500 units), Jesselton Residence (333 units), Ashton Tower (391 units), Jing Yuen(80 units), Jade Residence (135 units) existing supply of Lido 4 Season (820 units) Light Residence (228 units). Thats a lot of units in the market in the span of 12 months, and I think its going to take at least 3 or 4 years to filled up. So Landlords you have your word cut out. Fight for your tenants!

propertykid. Always learning, always investing.