Apartment renting in Indonesia
Indonesia is an easy place to live most of the time, once your settled and sorted, then life is good you can relax. Getting settled and sorted however, can be the problem.
I’ve been in Indonesia almost two years now and for all of that time, I’ve been living in a house provided by my employer for a small amount removed from my wage. However, when you live in this type of accommodation, rules are the norm and living with others is cert. The doesn’t normally bother me (although recently the sink ethics of some have gotten to me ), I have always found myself adverse to following rules that I don’t remotely agree with. Such as your long term partner having restrictions on how often she can be there with you.
So I recently made the decision to take the plunge and move out of my safe, simple, company provided accommodation into a rented apartment.
The process of doing so, I found not to be as simple as one would expect.
The first thing you need to know is the rent: apartments and houses come typically in three states, unfurnished, furnished and unfurnished with AC. However, the exactly what unfurnished means, is down to the owners. Sometimes it won’t even include a fully fitted kitchen, though usually at least the bathroom will be complete. The upside is, that unfurnished is a lot cheaper and it isn’t too expensive to furnish a flat to reasonable standard.
Price comes down to many things; furnish, size, location and colour of your skin. In all occasions, I’d recommend having an Indonesian friend look at an apartment for you, take a thousand pictures to show you and then put a small down payment on it, if you think it is worth looking at. The down payment should keep the price fixed, so they can’t raise it when the realise the occupier is someone who they’d want more money from; such as a money loaded westerner.
The biggest downside to all renting in Indonesia, or at least Jakarta; is the rather troubling need to pay all your rent upfront. This isn’t strictly that the amount is high, but that with it goes any leverage you may have had, until your next renewal. The age old trick of I’m not paying until you’ve fixed it, won’t work here. It is possible to find some landlords who’ll accept monthly rent, but this is typically in Kos’s (think university halls of residences and you won’t be far off) and never for houses. On the occasion you do find it for an apartment it will often be at a rate which is much higher than if you simply paid all up front.
Then once you’ve moved in, there are the bills. Typically in an apartment you’ll have to pay for electricity, water, maintenance and parking if you have a car or bike. The problem here is, that all of these things are set by the block of flats. Electricity and water has 3 or 4 different outputs depending on size of your house and where you live, these naturally come with varying prices, the same is for water though in this case, as to why is beyond me. Maintenance is again set by the apartment and will likely be governed by how pricey the apartment is, if you live in a more expensive block, expect the price to be higher. Parking is what it is and again set by the block, but it is worth it, because your means of transport will be safely kept. With regards to all the bills, it is simply best to ask for an example bill upon your first look around, of course the exact bill will be down to your own usage, but it can at,east give you a ball park figure.
Once you’re sorted, all that is left is to move in grab a beer, sit back and enjoy life.