How to terminate a tenancy agreement prematurely?

Post from: Houses In Singapore

There’s been a spite on the question on how to terminate a tenancy agreement prematurely. Both landlord and tenant can ask the other to terminate the agreement early, provided there are some breaches of agreement by one party.

Here are a few things that landlord might breach in tenancy agreement

Interrupting the peaceful enjoyment of the premises of the tenant

This happen when owner keep looking up the tenant for no reason. Such as asking for early rental payments or entering the premises with or without the tenant knowledge.

Did not maintain the property properly

Such as leaking taps or shower hose from the very first day after moving in. Tenant can ask the owner to make good of the repairs during their first month of stay. Owner are oblige to do so with no cost to tenant.

Pest infested house

Common pest infestation such as bed bugs and post bettle bug that feed on wooden furniture or even cockroaches and ants. Have to engage pest management service to resolve. In the case of bed bugs, tenants will have to move out of the house.

Breaches by tenant

Late payment of rental

The most common breach by tenant is not paying of rental on time. If the payment of rent is not prompt, the landlord might just ask tenant to leave and forfeit tenant’s deposit

Disturbing neighbors

Tenants might disturb the neighbours with loud music or illegally subletting their rental flat to their friends. Inconsiderate behaviour like placing unwanted articles at the corridor and receive several complains by neighbours can also be breaching the contract.

Above are just a few examples of the common defaults by landlords and tenants. The best way to resolve is to first mediate between landlords and tenanst. Try not to terminate the tenancy agreement at the first instance of disagreement.

Have you encountered any bad experience with landlords or tenants? Please share with us.

Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty (ABSD) on Purchase of Residential Properties – New Property Cooling Measure on 8th December 2011

Post from: Houses In Singapore

From 8th December 2011, buyers of residential properties which include residential land will have to pay Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty (ABSD) on top of the existing buyer’s stamp duty.

The hardest hit are foreign buyers, where the  ABSD will be 10% on the purchase price or market value whichever is higher. This is on top of the existing Buyer Stamp Duty.

Permanent Residents who already own one property and buying a second or subsequent property will pay an additional 3% ABSD.

Singapore Citizens who own two properties and buying a third and subsequent property will also pay an additional 3% ABSD.

Why the new cooling measure now?

From the Ministry of National Development press release on 7th December 2011, it said:

1) The Government’s objective is to promote a sustainable residential property market where prices move in line with economic fundamentals. Prices of private residential properties have continued to rise, albeit more slowly in the last two quarters. Prices are now 13% above the peak in second quarter1996 and 16% above the more recent peak in second quarter 2008.

2) Even with the current economic uncertainties, the demand for private residential property remains firm. Given the uncertainty in stock markets and with interest rates remaining low, private property in Singapore continues to attract investors, local and foreign. Excessive investment demand will however make the property cycle more volatile, and thus increase the risks to our economy and banking system.

The press release added “A higher ABSD rate for foreign buyers in particular is necessary, in view of the large pool of external liquidity and strong buying interest from abroad, and the relatively small size of the Singapore market. Foreign purchases account for 19% of all private residential property purchases in second half of 2011, up from 7% in first half 2009″.

What are your comments on this new cooling measures? Please share with us.

Why property agents must use blog to generate leads?

Post from: Houses In Singapore

According to World Internet Usage Statistics News and World Population Stats, there are about 2 billion people surfing the web daily. In Singapore 2 in 3 Singaporeans shop online according t0 Straits Time article Jan 10 2011. There is a change of how people shop and how people gather information. They use the internet everyday. You use internet daily too. You find that you are getting fewer calls from your traditional medium like newspaper classified ads and flyers. I used to get tremendous number of calls for room rentals in the local Chinese papers but recently the calls were few. Did the tenants stop buying Chinese paper? No of course! The reason is because they all went to the internet to look for room rental. There is a website called 新新网. It’s in Chinese and is very popular, if you compare the section of room renting in Craiglist, this site is definitely a Chinese version of Craiglist. I may have exaggerated but you can see for yourself. Tenants have already changed the way to look for houses.

Hong Kong Real Estate Agencies

Post from: Houses In Singapore

On my recent trip to Hong Kong, I went around to survey how the real estate agencies operate in Hong Kong. I took some photos too. Some of the agencies set up is really simple. Only a desk with two chairs for customer to sit. The size of office is about 100sqft. Most of these shops have double frontage which allow them to put up listings of properties that are currently available for sale or for rent. The area which these agencies covers probably is only a few streets to few MTR stations away from their shop. Very localized and focus on certain areas only. The way real estate agencies conduct business in Hong Kong is very different from the way we do it Singapore. We do not have real estate agencies lining up on the streets (the pictures were taken just on one street).  I think with a shop, the agency can generate a lot leads and in turn give them the needed income to sustain the rental of the shop and of course make profits.

I didn’t have time to find out how they operate, I hope someone can drop me some idea on how Hong Kong real estate agencies work.

How to Create Email Marketing Campaign for New Project Launch?

Post from: Houses In Singapore

You are invited to join market a new project launch. Usually a project launch will have 10 to 20 agents working together, sharing cost for mailers and canvassing at different estates. Each agent may spend from $100 to $500 on each marketing campaign and there is no guarantee that you get leads. If you are lucky, you get a few leads and close a few units for the developer with quite handsome profits. But what if you are the unlucky one? To better increase your marketing efforts in project marketing, you will need to create an Email Marketing campaign. With the email list that you have collected from other condo project that you have participated before, contact your buyers through email. See the video to see how easy to set up the email.

Well, what do you think? With a proper emailing system and automated follow up email system it will definitely boast your project sales. So sign up for Getresponse Email Marketing now!

To learn more about Real Estate Email Marketing, simply join my email list now!