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Renting advice/ estate agents

11

Posts

EW NEWBIE

Latest post on 21 June 2013 - 22:50

Hi
My husband has been trying to contact some estate agents to inquire about properties to rent and so far haven't had much luck in terms of being given detailed info about villas, is it me or do people just copy and paste the same pics for multiple houses??? So my question is does anyone know of any good estate agents who will help out sending info to us as we are still in England?
Also my hubby wanted to know how safe is it to rent directly from a landlord? As in how would you know the house is theirs to rent out etc?

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3

Posts

EW NEWBIE

Latest post on 14 August 2013 - 09:06

On Dubizzle, you have agents with commercial licenses who pay a monthly fee to advertise. These ads will usually show a single property and has the business name and sometimes also the trade license number. Be careful of vague ads that offer many properties in one ad and don't have this business information. Proper agencies have to show evidence they know what they are doing before they can get their trade license in Abu Dhabi. They also earn that commission you pay, whether as a split or in full, to do the legwork to get you a property you want. My husband has a real estate agency (Emirates American Property Management) and carries copies of his trade license to assure clients and HR departments that he is the real deal. With so many unregistered agents, it's important you ask for a copy of their trade license or, in the very least, a proper business card with their name on it.

11

Posts

EW NEWBIE

Latest post on 28 June 2013 - 00:45

I have resent....it appears my windows mail just likes to keep mails in the outbox. Thanks for that, it is very interesting, so does this mean where I have seen properties advertised cheaper on certain websites the properties are not actually available and a bit of a marketing ploy?? I'm starting to get an idea of how different things are out there!

Saharagypsyrose

484

Posts

EW EXPLORER

Latest post on 27 June 2013 - 21:23

I have resent....it appears my windows mail just likes to keep mails in the outbox.

Saharagypsyrose

484

Posts

EW EXPLORER

Latest post on 27 June 2013 - 19:34

Sent! you can remove your email address.

Saharagypsyrose

484

Posts

EW EXPLORER

Latest post on 25 June 2013 - 18:21

Hi Skai, I was not able to get a copy of the ARG vacant list, but managed to take a photo of it. If you want, reply with your email, and I will send it to you. It was a rather short list, about a dozen or so, mostly 4 bedroom villas and townhouses. The security deposit for ARG is 10,000. If they have a "to-be-vacant" list, I hadn't noticed it at the reception.

4747

Posts

EW MASTER

Latest post on 25 June 2013 - 15:34

So if we went to Aldar directly would we pay less commission/ security deposit? You still need to pay 5% commission to Aldar. I have heard security deposits from 10,000dhs to 5% for ARG. I will be at their office today, I will see if I can get you the list. nope as said you still have to pay the commission, it doesnt matter who it is you still pay, only if you deal directly and i mean directly with the landlord can you avoid this, but i wouldnt recommend it, if you are new to the way of the world here, you could become unstuck..... it does happen more than you know. one thread which has since been deleted about such things.

Saharagypsyrose

484

Posts

EW EXPLORER

Latest post on 25 June 2013 - 07:25

So if we went to Aldar directly would we pay less commission/ security deposit? You still need to pay 5% commission to Aldar. I have heard security deposits from 10,000dhs to 5% for ARG. I will be at their office today, I will see if I can get you the list.

11

Posts

EW NEWBIE

Latest post on 25 June 2013 - 01:38

I think we may give renting directly from a landlord a miss for our first year at least, seems too complicated! Regardless of whether you are renting direct or through an agent, you still need to do the due diligence and it's no more complicated than dealing with an agent. However, the difficulty of trying to rent directly from a landlord is that you won't find many out there because 99% of landlords won't bother to advertise since they are not the ones paying the agents' fees (I fall into the 1% :D). As busybee pointed out, unless you know the lay of the land and how things work here, it's probably easier to deal with agent for the time being. I believe Al Raha Gardens also go through the developer's leasing office as well. Give them a call at 02-8107500 for available listing. They should have a list of the available villas because most landlords would authorize them to re-lease their villas on their behalf in addition to listing them with outside agents. yep aldar do raha gardens, but if you get through an agency you pay double unless you haggle. landlords if they advertise on the house etc will not be direct usually its an agent number anyways. if the property has a mortgage on it which most of them do, its usually all done via the bank/propery agent anyways and then you still have to pay commission. the way it works here is so very different from the uk. if landlords had to find tenants and pay commission it would be much better but thats not the way it is so you have to go with the flow. So if we went to Aldar directly would we pay less commission/ security deposit?

4747

Posts

EW MASTER

Latest post on 24 June 2013 - 15:33

I think we may give renting directly from a landlord a miss for our first year at least, seems too complicated! Regardless of whether you are renting direct or through an agent, you still need to do the due diligence and it's no more complicated than dealing with an agent. However, the difficulty of trying to rent directly from a landlord is that you won't find many out there because 99% of landlords won't bother to advertise since they are not the ones paying the agents' fees (I fall into the 1% :D). As busybee pointed out, unless you know the lay of the land and how things work here, it's probably easier to deal with agent for the time being. I believe Al Raha Gardens also go through the developer's leasing office as well. Give them a call at 02-8107500 for available listing. They should have a list of the available villas because most landlords would authorize them to re-lease their villas on their behalf in addition to listing them with outside agents. yep aldar do raha gardens, but if you get through an agency you pay double unless you haggle. landlords if they advertise on the house etc will not be direct usually its an agent number anyways. if the property has a mortgage on it which most of them do, its usually all done via the bank/propery agent anyways and then you still have to pay commission. the way it works here is so very different from the uk. if landlords had to find tenants and pay commission it would be much better but thats not the way it is so you have to go with the flow.

Saharagypsyrose

484

Posts

EW EXPLORER

Latest post on 24 June 2013 - 10:05

I think we may give renting directly from a landlord a miss for our first year at least, seems too complicated! Regardless of whether you are renting direct or through an agent, you still need to do the due diligence and it's no more complicated than dealing with an agent. However, the difficulty of trying to rent directly from a landlord is that you won't find many out there because 99% of landlords won't bother to advertise since they are not the ones paying the agents' fees (I fall into the 1% :D). As busybee pointed out, unless you know the lay of the land and how things work here, it's probably easier to deal with agent for the time being. I believe Al Raha Gardens also go through the developer's leasing office as well. Give them a call at 02-8107500 for available listing. They should have a list of the available villas because most landlords would authorize them to re-lease their villas on their behalf in addition to listing them with outside agents.

4747

Posts

EW MASTER

Latest post on 24 June 2013 - 07:58

Thanks for the info. We have had some quite blunt messages from estate agents who insist they have no more information to give us than what is in the advert, it's so frustrating! We were really interested in Al raha gardens but from what i gather from a few different forums the bills vary drastically from villa to villa and it may be a lucky dip based on the villa you get? On average I think bills in ARG are 1500aed per month for a 3 bed, is that normal? It would be really useful to know how much you all are paying per month on bills, the size of your villa and location?? Also, how much is a security deposit usually, and do you realistically get it back? I think we may give renting directly from a landlord a miss for our first year at least, seems too complicated! u will soon see that estate agents is a very different term out here than in the uk. they will not email you anything, they often dont do an awful lot here anyways.... security deposit can be different, for us we are with ADIB which is a bank they require 5k deposit, but friends just moved in town they had to put down a 20k deposit. all are different, and also dont expect to see that deposit back, so try and keep to the lower side. if you reckon 1500/2000k a month that is fine, we are in a stand alone villa but have 3 other people in the house who like it artic all the time, and we can pay 2k a month, not much water as we dont have a pool or garden to maintain (the landlord does that). i would go with an estate agent in the first instance as some of them are more helpful than others and you can spend a long time driving and sorting out things yourself and when you are new to how things work here its no joke. once you are knowledgable of the way things work here then you can branch out yourself so to speak.

5

Posts

EW NEWBIE

Latest post on 24 June 2013 - 01:23

Hi give me an email on [email protected] I am from the uk and have been here nearly three years and have a ton of info I can email over to you :)

11

Posts

EW NEWBIE

Latest post on 23 June 2013 - 23:16

Thanks for the info. We have had some quite blunt messages from estate agents who insist they have no more information to give us than what is in the advert, it's so frustrating! We were really interested in Al raha gardens but from what i gather from a few different forums the bills vary drastically from villa to villa and it may be a lucky dip based on the villa you get? On average I think bills in ARG are 1500aed per month for a 3 bed, is that normal? It would be really useful to know how much you all are paying per month on bills, the size of your villa and location?? Also, how much is a security deposit usually, and do you realistically get it back? I think we may give renting directly from a landlord a miss for our first year at least, seems too complicated!

4747

Posts

EW MASTER

Latest post on 23 June 2013 - 15:22

I agree that if you are not physically here and needing a place to rent immediately, most agents won't care to waste time on you. The majority of the photos you see are generic; being used for the same type of properties, and sometimes they are not even showing the right properties! Dealing with the landlord directly will save you the 5% agent's fee which you could use toward security deposit. As for the documents to ensure you have a legit landlord, you would still need to ask for all the relevant docs with or without agents' help. I asked for all the necessary documents from my landlord via agent to protect myself. The development in AD that you don't have to worry is the Al Raha Beach (perhaps there are other communities, but I only know of this one). All the tenancy contracts have to go through the developer Aldar (ie leasing office), so you don't have to worry about renting from an imposter. It is a nice safeguard for the tenants but a pain (fees galore) for the owners. I have dealt with MD Real Estate in AD, they are quite good and professional. Good luck with your search! edited by Saharagypsyrose on 23/06/2013 all new contracts now need to be attested/stamped from ad municipality, and so any split villas or illegal ones etc will not be approved and so you cannot get a visa renewed for the family etc. various places that expats can buy such as raha beach is owned by aldar, in al reef its manazel, other places that you cannot buy are run by certain local companies, such as sas by khimah, they are usually sub sections of local banks here.

Saharagypsyrose

484

Posts

EW EXPLORER

Latest post on 23 June 2013 - 13:12

I agree that if you are not physically here and needing a place to rent immediately, most agents won't care to waste time on you. The majority of the photos you see are generic; being used for the same type of properties, and sometimes they are not even showing the right properties! Dealing with the landlord directly will save you the 5% agent's fee which you could use toward security deposit. As for the documents to ensure you have a legit landlord, you would still need to ask for all the relevant docs with or without agents' help. I asked for all the necessary documents from my landlord via agent to protect myself. The development in AD that you don't have to worry is the Al Raha Beach (perhaps there are other communities, but I only know of this one). All the tenancy contracts have to go through the developer Aldar (ie leasing office), so you don't have to worry about renting from an imposter. It is a nice safeguard for the tenants but a pain (fees galore) for the owners. I have dealt with MD Real Estate in AD, they are quite good and professional. Good luck with your search! <em>edited by Saharagypsyrose on 23/06/2013</em>

4747

Posts

EW MASTER

Latest post on 23 June 2013 - 10:22

Hi My husband has been trying to contact some estate agents to inquire about properties to rent and so far haven't had much luck in terms of being given detailed info about villas, is it me or do people just copy and paste the same pics for multiple houses??? So my question is does anyone know of any good estate agents who will help out sending info to us as we are still in England? Also my hubby wanted to know how safe is it to rent directly from a landlord? As in how would you know the house is theirs to rent out etc? there arent really any good ones. they wont do anything whilst you are not in the country, this is not the uk, things work very very very differently. when looking for property they will not even tell you about properties if more than 3 weeks ahead of when you are needing it usually. renting direct has its good and bad. good that you dont pay the estate commission, bad that you have to make sure that the landlord is legit, has rights to the property etc etc. you must get loads of paperwork, landlords passport copy, deeds etc etc.

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