Rental hoax or exceptional demand?

• Clivebenss

  13 Jul 11, 09:24

  Jul 13, 2011 - ST Forum

  I AM a 27-year-old professional from India working in Singapore, and have been looking to rent a three-bedroom Housing Board unit with two friends in the centre of town.

  In the past two weeks, I have scanned the classifieds online and in the newspapers but to no avail. Most of the advertisements on property websites are fake and many of the units listed online do not exist for rent.

  When I call an agent about a property, he is more interested in getting my profile than talking about the listing. When I ask for a specific listing, I am inevitably told the unit has been taken. Such units are either non-existent or were rented out on the day they were listed, which is unlikely for every unit.

  If they had been taken up, isn't it the responsibility of the agents to remove the listings from the website? And if the units are fake, then it is an unethical way of doing business and fishing for clients.

  Rishu Choudhary

• charlize

  13 Jul 11, 09:47

  Times are bad.

   

  I see many ads for property sale or rental which states categorically that it is a "true listing".

   

  This fake advertising phenomena must be quite widespread for agents to differentiate their listings as real against those fake ones.

   

  On a side note, I notice cov is now climbing higher by incredible amounts.

   

  50-70K for even places like Sengkang and Punggol.

   

  I can imagine areas closer to town will be like 100K.

• Clivebenss

  13 Jul 11, 10:40

  he can't afford so complain.

  

• charlize

  13 Jul 11, 10:52

  Originally posted by Clivebenss:

  he can't afford so complain.

  

  Not many people can afford the sky high rents these days.

   

  Yes, even you.

• Clivebenss

  13 Jul 11, 12:16

  Originally posted by charlize:

  Not many people can afford the sky high rents these days.

   

  Yes, even you.

  only charlize can afford.

  

• Captainjillhawk

  13 Jul 11, 12:26

  living on a ship is cheaper.

• Clivebenss

  13 Jul 11, 12:28

  Originally posted by Captainjillhawk:

  living on a ship is cheaper.

  unless you are talking about a small dinghy.

  

• charlize

  13 Jul 11, 16:10

  Originally posted by Clivebenss:

  only charlize can afford.

  

  It's affordable if you stretch whatever I need to pay to 150 years.

   

  Really.

• SevenEleven

  13 Jul 11, 16:13

  stay in DISTRICT TENt

• charlize

  14 Jul 11, 13:57

  Originally posted by SevenEleven:

  stay in DISTRICT TENt

  Can't afford tent even.