Finding an Apartment in KL

Finding an apartment in Kuala Lumpur, like in any city, can be frustrating, even with proper planning.  However, since KL is quite a modern city, there are a plethora of resources available to provide enough information to become an informed decision maker.

Searching for Apartments

The website I recommend to start your search is iproperty. This website is absolutely AWESOME! I honestly wish we had a website like this in US.  From here, you can search thousands of listings of apartments, townhouse, and homes that are either for rent or for sale (there is even an option for properties on auction). You can narrow your search square footage, location and price. You can even narrow your search by location of major attractions, such as schools, transportation or shopping. Using the ‘Advanced Search’ you can specify the number of rooms, if the housing is furnished or unfurnished and the type of facilities desired (such as a pool, fitness centre, nursery or 24 hour security). My favourite feature of their website is that you can search using a map.  When you choose this option, the search results show a map of KL with the apartment options highlighted with red tick marks. You can click on the individual tick marks to obtain detailed property information. This gives you an ability to really see which part of town the apartments are located in.

As I was moving from another country and had never been to KL before, and I did not know anyone that lived in KL, my issue was that I did not know which areas of KL I would consider living in. I did some research on what areas are good to live in, but I didn’t know if I wanted to pay a premium to live in an ‘expat area’ (like Bangsar and Ampang) just because it was an expat area. As my husband and I were living in NY, and were used to taking public transportation, we decided we wanted to live somewhere that was close to public transportation, so we wouldn’t have to get a car right away if we didn’t need one. There are many posts online that discuss how the bus system in KL is frustrating at best (will post on public transportation in KL at a later date), so we decided we wanted to live in walking distance to the train system, so we wouldn’t have to rely on buses. In addition, upon moving here I had a job but my husband didn’t.  As we didn’t want his commute to be unbearable (and we didn’t know where he would have to commute to), we decided to stick as close to KL Sentral as possible (since almost all the train lines went out of KL). Narrowing out search made it a lot easier for us when searching for apartments, because we could easily eliminate places that were too far out.

If public transport is not a concern, I think the main thing people should realize when looking for an apartment in KL is that the traffic here is extremely bad.  A majority of the people I work with commute between 1 ½ to 3 hours to and from work each day!  It’s not that they live super-far (without traffic their commute runs between 15-20 minutes each way). Rather, they spend hours and hours each week in huge traffic jams, even if they pay tolls to ‘avoid’ the traffic.  As such, if you plan on driving in KL (which is recommended for people with children as walking is not an easy feat (will blog about walking in KL at a later date), then try to get a place as close to where you will work as possible, so you can avoid the crazy traffic and take as many back roads as possible.

As a note, one thing that really surprised me in reading the apartment descriptions is that people here are allowed to be blatantly racist. Many descriptions say ‘only families’ or ‘no children’ but some go as far to say ‘only chinese’ or ‘only malay’! In the US, you could be taken to court for being that ‘honest’ in your preferences. However here, it’s quite the norm. It was taken to an entirely new level when we arrived because when we asked one of our agents about it (who was Chinese herself), she openly discussed why other races were not considered ‘suitable tenants’.  My husband and I were horrified to say the least – however they are serious about this stuff here.  Although tensions here are quite low, under the surface, it appears that many have preconceived notions of different races, so be prepared for that before you arrive.

Making Appointments

Once our search was narrowed, we decided to pick a few apartments in different neighbourhoods we were considering, so we could compare in person the pros and cons of location, verses space, verses price. As we were still overseas, we emailed at least 10 different brokers, detailing the apartment(s) we liked that they were showing, along with the request that we were interested in anything else they had on their book that they thought we would be interested in. Another great thing about iproperty is that once you find a property you are interested in, you can look at the property realtor’s page that lists every property they have posted on the website.  This saves time because you can view a couple of properties with the same realtor in one day.  We booked multiple showings over a 3-day period, and made sure we had the realtor’s phone numbers before heading off to KL.  Once we arrived, we went to an internet café and reconfirmed our appointments – giving the realtor’s our KL contact information.  As a note, when making these appointments, make sure that you have a specific location where you can meet them at, as I learnt this the hard way by waiting an hour at a train station exit when the realtor was just across the street in her car.

Prioritization

After looking at many apartments (around 10), I realised for the same price range you can get a HUGE range of apartments and apartment locations in KL. Thus, it’s important to look at as many places as you can take. Despite the differences in interiors, the biggest issue I had when looking was that since KL is spread out, I usually did not see many restaurants or shops around the areas where I was looking for apartments.  Thus, I quickly learnt that I had to go out of my way to ask the realtor to show us the surrounding area so we could really understand the area we would live in. Also, as my husband and I wouldn’t initially have a car, we wanted to make sure there were plenty or restaurants and shops in the area for convenience purposes.

Negotiations and Legal Requirements

Once we decided on a place, we started negotiations.  Yes, rent is negotiable in KL; and we were able to drop the rent by RM100 per month – which isn’t that bad.  Our strategy was to discuss how we didn’t like the furniture and we needed to spend additional money on decorations. Additionally, we negotiated with the owner to purchase a new bed for the spare bedroom and to provide a microwave.  In the end, we were happy with our price, and felt we got a great deal (picture of our apartment’s amazing pool is attached)!

Just to note, in KL if you want to rent an apartment you are required to pay a 3 ½ month deposit (includes the 1^st month’s rent, and a utility fee), as well as copies of your passport. In addition, you have to pay nominal stamping fees (which is similar to a notary republic). Once this deposit is paid, if you back out, you lose your deposit. However, if the owner backs out after accepting your deposit, they are required to pay back your deposit plus a month’s rent.  This is to cover any losses the potential renter would bear if the owner changes their mind.

If you have any questions on looking for apartments, or need to bounce ideas off of someone, feel free to send me any questions.