A netizen said that she has been looking for a unit for rental at the moment and was told by one of her agents that the landlord prefers foreigners.

Here is what she said

rental : why do landlords prefer foreigners?

am looking for a studio/unit for rental recently. understood that the markets are pretty hot right now, offered quite a few places but none reverted.

then today one of the agents reply me saying that the landlord prefers foreigners ??? but why though … I just want to understand what is wrong with Singaporeans renting apts? I have been looking for a good few weeks

Netizens’ explanations

• As a landlord, what matters most is how much I can lease for my property (which I am most likely still paying for) while keeping maintenance and repair costs to a minimum. Hence there is always the challenge of finding a tenant who is polite, considerate, and mostly respectful enough to safe-keep the property on your behalf at a reasonable price.
  It is unfortunate but there are certain demographics that simply do not see the transaction as such, and instead have the mentality that “if I’m paying = I’m boss and I can do whatever I want”. Which is why over decades, people have developed distaste over certain stereotypes.
  Landlords are not any better. I would say the older generation of landlords are far less forgiving and more penny pinching especially when it comes to maintenance. They really expect the tenant to rent for 2 years and handover in better condition than before, for their own benefit. Typical “you scratch my car so now I can fix everything at one go on your dime” mentality.
  I can’t speak for other landlords but for my husband and I we have a highest-bidder-wins policy, and if we make the effort to handover nicely to you, please do the bare minimum stated in the contract.
  ^Also, you didn’t hear it from me but some people dislike dealing with Singaporeans because 1. They expect local price 2. Haggle and complain too much and 3. Know the market too well and unable to make a higher profit.
• Locals don’t rent for long and are less likely to renew their leases. This means that the landlord has to look for new tenants once the lease for the current local tenant is over.
  In a bad market, this could mean the house is left empty and not generating income for the landlord while the landlord is looking for tenants.
  The landlord or his agent also has to go through the hassle of inspecting the apartment for damages and fixing things after the lease is over.
  Foreigners, especially expats, tend to stay longer and renew their leases. So, there is less downtime with them.
• My agent’s explanation:
  If Singaporeans can’t buy their own property and have to rent, it is quite a question mark.
  If they rent to move out of family home, is something to question why.
  If they rent because they are not eligible for HDB (e.g. unmarried couple), then what happens to lease should they part ways.
  They are Singaporean and nothing much to lose other than Security deposit. Foreigners may want to be more law abiding (or rather abiding to lease terms ) and focus on their main reason being in SG.
  Singaporeans are more familiar with local situation and they know they can be pretty much untouched (e.g. they know the threshold before authorities intervene).

A netizen shared a story of an incident which happened while they went on holiday a while back.

Here is what she shared:

Probably just posting here for someone to prove it otherwise.

But I’ve been getting a lot of calls or texts from my friends who turns out to just want to sell me things like insurance and property etc.

Often I just thought it was just a normal catch up until they bring up the insurance plans and property things they want to sell to me.

At this point, I just find the meetup so awkward and I feel like I was being tricked, thought was just some friendly meetups, but turns out I’m a potential cash cow for them to get sales in their respective insurance/property business.

Now I feel like I have phobia to anyone who are in any form of sales, not just insurance and property only.

I’ll always think they look at me as cash cow, so they are not genuine at all, and I find it hard to trust them.

How would you prevent this?

Or actually there are still good people inside of these insurance/property or sales professions?

Here are what netizens think

• If you’re in sales and not interested in selling you’re either gonna starve or get fired. For sure there are insurance agents who will sell you garbage ILPs that will give them the most comm and others who would give you good advice. I’ve heard of some shady property agents pushing their clients to buy a property they can barely afford just cuz they want to close a deal. Had a property agent who’d always try to push me to accept lowball offers on my rental when I could easily check the median rental rates of my block online. Did he think I was a fool? Got rid of him real quick.
• Well if you haven’t met up with the friend in awhile and they suddenly call you out of the blue, surely you shouldn’t be that naive to think they just want to catch up – especially if you know they are in insurance/property/sales? Just tell them outright that you’d love to meet up, but categorically state that you are absolutely not interested to hear about anything they are selling. Then see if they’re still interested to “catch up”.
• I used to feel really bad but I usually see this more from insurance agents or “financial planners” compared to property agents. It’s such sly behaviour and is usually pushed so they can hit numbers rather than it actually being in your best interest.

Image source: Unsplash

I approached my boss in June and explained that I was borrowing 200 bucks a month from my parents to help make my 875 dollars a month private loan payments and that with other loans resuming at the end of September (before it was extended) I could not get by on my salary.

My employment contract stated that after 6 months of probation I will be given a minimum of 7% raise on the confirmation, but I was already confirmed 2 months back and have yet to receive any increase on my salary.

My manager said he’ll talk to his boss about getting me something for my 6 months and that he would authorize me to work overtime for an additional salary.

This helped a lot but I was still trying to see about that raise.

It looks like the 6 months raise won’t happen but they’re aiming for a significant raise at my 1 year. They’re talking about trying to get me 60k.

He then said he’s going to get his boss to have a discussion about a long-term salary plan for me. He says by 5 years he wants me in the mid 70’s and at 10 I should be making 100.

But it all turned out to be some fairy tail even it was written in the contract, as a contract normally protects the rich.

I confronted my boss yesterday and he said that he is not increasing my salary due to some BS reasons and said he is happy to let go of me If I ever brought up the topic again.

If I sue him, I obviously won’t win or last with my small amount of savings. Getting a pro-bono lawyer is useless as they are mostly final years students or fresh grads with little to no experience.

What should I do?

A netizen shared a story about how he bought a Rolex for about $25k in a bid to impress women when he goes out drinking, but then he got drunk and lost it.

Here is what he said

“I recently bought a Rolex Submariner for about $25k because I always thought that it was a good investment because the watch market is always climbing and i can always sell the Rolex for a higher price in the future.

But one of the main reasons why I bought the Rolex was to impress women when I go out drinking with my friends.

So a few weeks ago me and a group of friends went to KL to drink and gamble, and I wore my new Rolex to show off.

I can say that it kinda worked because among all the YPs inside the clubs and pubs that we went to, who were broke, I easily stood out with a $25k Rolex on my wrist.

The women were friendlier to me and tried to get close to me, and in the midst of trying to impress them, I kept drinking and drinking.

I drank until I vomited, then continued drinking until I vomited again, and then I resumed drinking – it’s a vicious cycle.

I got so drunk that I blacked out and had no recollection as to what happened when I woke up in my hotel room the next morning.

I looked at my wrist and saw that my Rolex was missing, I started panicking and asked all my friends if they had seen it.

We searched the entire room and found nothing, before going back out and retracing our steps to find my missing Rolex.

We spent the whole day in KL trying to look for my watch and when we still couldn’t find it, we made a police report before catching our flight back to Singapore because all of us had to return to work.

It has been weeks since I lost my Rolex and until now there is no news, I can safely say that it is gone with the wind by now.

I hate myself.”

Editor’s note:

A netizen recently shared a story about how his brother is persuading his father to allocate 100% of his insurance to his share as my father’s time is almost up.

The man said that he is seeking advice so that his brother does not go around his back and “swallow” the whole insurance payout.

Here is the story:

My father has been struggling with cancer for some time and he has an insurance policy that will be paid out after he goes.

When I was visiting my father at the hospital earlier today, I saw my brother talking to my dad and I overheard the conversation of him trying to persuade our father to give him the full assignment of the insurance after he goes.

I kept quiet and continued to listen, he said: “I am poor not like Gor Gor, he rich, got a rich wife and he sure won’t have no problem surviving”.

I peep and saw my dad just nodding his head as he is obviously too tired and unwell to listen to my brother’s nonsense.

I have been paying for my dad’s insurance and now he wants to cut me out of it.

Here is a little background of my brother, he failed his poly education and both my father and I paid 50% to help him get a private diploma.

He has always rubbed shoulders with the law and spent his salary on drinking and nothing better, The joke is he does not have any insurance coverage himself.

For him to say I am rich and married a rich wife is wrong, I worked very hard to get where I am today not going around begging.

I know no matter what, my dad will not make any changes to his will and insurance plan. But the thing is, I am afraid my brother might go behind my back and make him sign some documents as my dad is obviously does not have the mental capacity to deal with it.

Is there anything I can do? Mom is no longer in the picture as she pass away when I was a child and I have no one else to confide in.