Reddit Singapore removed my post just because I reshared it 1 too many times so I'm posting it here.
Fed up with the ever increasing rentals in Singapore? Need help comparing rentals? Well look no further.
Preface
I've been a rentee for several years now. Early years was OK but lately it has been a horrible experience finding a rental based on articles on Reddit and even news of scams finding rental in Singapore. Getting in contact to view the rental unit was difficult with many arrogant agents and landlords not responding to questions. From what I've read here on Reddit and a few other sites, agents even make rentees bid on the rental pushing up the price even further.
Some of these rental units don't even deserve to be stayed in. You might have seen news like this(https://www.asiaone.com/singapore/i-wont-want-live-here-even-if-you-pay-me-landlord-offers-windowless-store-room-pasir-ris) where there's just one mattress in a tiny and no windows whatsoever.
Even after landing a unit, I keep hearing of landlords making the stay at the unit a living hell. They want you to leave earlier so that they can claim the deposit for themselves. One case I've heard was really bad with the deposit withheld in the range of $8000+.
The rental situation is so bad in Singapore that there even exist a dedicated FB group talking about horrible rental and landlords: facebookdotcom/groups/SGroomblacklist/
Fed up with viewing listing after listing, I gathered a bunch of listings and analysed them to help with my rental search and after collecting rental data for 3+ years, I'm glad to share my analysis on Singapore's absurd rental market.
Check out this site for FREE access to the analysis tool: https://fck-landlords-rentals-sg.streamlit.app/
Recommended to be viewed on a computer as it is not optimised for mobile view
Before reading a wall of text. Take a look at this video of a member of parliament speaking up on rentals and landlords. https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/comments/vzn7fx/irish_socialist_member_of_parliament_speaks_the/
Other Reddit threads related to expensive housing and rental in Singapore:
https://www.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/13lh3yf/do_high_rental_influence_foreigners_decision_to/
https://www.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/1aktdln/median_monthly_household_income_rises_to_s10869/
Goal of This Site
My goal so let renters have more bargaining power and are not easily cheated/forced into paying ever increasing rental prices for greedy landlords. Landlords have been increasingly shown to not care for general populace and only increase rentals for their own gain. It is even more disgusting when you see the rules some of the landlord put up for the rental like "no cooking", "no visitors" and one of them worse I've seen: "no cooked or raw food in the fridge". I mean, you want to rent out your extra space, at least make them the person staying feel at home and not like a person that owes you money or living in a prison.
Rentees need to band together to put pressure and stop this vicious cycle of landlords taking rentees' hard-earned money. Landlords need to be reminded that rentees have the choice to choose where they want to stay.
Spread this to anyone you know that needs to find rental in Singapore. This should be their 1st place to check and verify that the rental they're looking is reasonably priced..
I'm not sure how much impact this will make but if even 1 rentee goes for a rent at the lower end of the market price range then that is already a win for me.
How to use this?
Treat it as a historical catalogue of rental listings throughout Singapore. Start by selecting a date range of data to analyze followed by filtering down to the name of the listing (e.g. Block 123 in ABC Avenue) or address/location(e.g. Toa Payoh).
The results on the graph shows the 'heat' of the prices starting from cheapest at the top and most expensive at the top. This helps compare the price range of the location you're considering to rent and similar listings within the same attribute(i.e. same address, region, etc., with air con, etc.) Compare these results to the rental you are viewing and consider to checkout the cheaper listings and look away if it's way above the average or median market price.
Another very helpful feature is to check the 'history' of a rental listing. If you look at recent listings, occasionally you may find some are duplicates as they have the same listing picture, description, etc. This may mean that the listing is not good, whether the price is too high or that they may be some other underlying issue that is not apparent in the listing until one does a visit to the unit.
Limitations
Due to the likely possibility that not all users are looking for rent and some may be landlords, I've decided to hide a certain % of the listings as to favor rentees. Currently, it is configured to show results up to the 3rd quartile of prices based on filters given. This is to encourage rentees to go for cheaper rentals.
Interesting Findings
Changes in prices over 3 years
This constitutes listings from early 2021 to early 2024 with about 70000 listings in total
Note: You can't see this kind of view in the actual web app.
Viewing the graph over a 3 year period and with no price filters, we can clearly see when landlords got greedy and we can see prices become 1.5x to over 2x of past listings.
This is particularly apparent for whole unit listings. See the below screenshots for more details
Looking at graph plots on the left side of the graph(which constitutes listings from early 2021 to close to 1st half of 2022) and at upper top end of the price range, you can see that they are mostly(if not all) whole unit listings.
This one I highlighted is for a unit located in Orchard.
If we take a look at the right side of the graph(which constitutes listings from 2nd half of 2022 to early 2024) and try to find a similar listing, it is almost 2X the price.
Listings that are repeated for many weeks
One can only guess why it is still not rented after almost 3 months of advertising. Good thing is that we see prices going down after some time knowing that there's no demand for this room rental.
Other Notes
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Rentals - Source 1 is more reliable IMO as a majority of the listings are listed by the landlord and not by agents
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In Rentals - Source 1 , the tags property for listings is incomplete for a majority of the listings prior to 2024
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There may be more 'clusters' of points as some data lack the information to help distribute by when the rental listings were published.
Feel free to ask questions down in the comments. I'll be happy to help you on your rental journey.
Closing Notes
I'm not sure how long I can keep the site up especially if it goes under due to load. Hopefully it stays up long enough to make an impact.
Please help to spread the word and make an impact on bringing down housing rental prices.
How timely, another story about landlords from hell:
https://www.reddit.com/r/askSingapore/comments/1arxyxw/landlord_from_hell/
F*** landlords and rental agents. See how long you all can huat!