Trying to rent a house has NOT been the high point of my life in Uruguay.
The same house is offered for rent at different prices by different realtors. If the house is in a barrio that is a bit less desirable than its neighbor, then the house is listed as being in the more pretigious barrio next door. I found one house listed in 3 different barrios. The advertised size of the house, in square meters, includes anything with a roof over it, including the dog house and mail box. The size of the land attached does or does not include the land occupied by the house (you have to guess which). The stated cost of utilities can be flat out fiction, as can be the availability of things like natural gas, TV cable, and even ADSL. Just because the realtor says so, doesn’t mean it is even close to being true–check with the service provider directly.
There is no licensing for realtors and certainly no code of ethics. While YOU pay them, they mostly work to get the best deal for themselves. Since their commission is 1 months rent, they have no incentive whatsoever to negotiate a reduction on your behalf with the landlord, nor for that matter to even pass your offers on to the landlord. One way we have found to mitigate this problem is by promising to pay the realtor their fee at the posted rate of the rental, even if we negotiate a lower rental rate.
All things considered, nothing I have written thus far really annoys me. What does drive me crazy is the local idea that “nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to” and then “it still isn’t agreed to until it is signed”.
Repeatedly we have set forth our special requirements BEFORE we go to look at a property–in my case mostly accessability issues. They agree beforehand or indicate that they will have no issues with those needs. When we look at the house, they are anxious for us to rent it ASAP. Then they decide they are not too happy about paying to make anything accessible–then they aren’t too happy about even letting us pay to make it accessable–then they lose interest in the deal, by which time we have wasted 3 days.
This has happened over and over and over again. I must have been really lucky with this first rental, because we did not go through this then…
So, at this point, I have two entirely different places under active negotiations–15 kilometers part–at vastly different prices–and I am still looking for more.
With 40 days left, I have no choice but to pick up the pace…
Southron,
I’m sure people have posted about such issues here (or somewhere) but I haven’t seen them yet.
So, I’m going to say something about renting that struck me as a little weird and should factor into any kinds of considerations about moving to MVD and the budgeting for accomodations one should expect.
If I’m repeating what others have said, consider this reinforcement of those earlier posts :)
When renting, a “commission” of one month’s worth of rent from the renter and one month’s worth of rent for the owner seems to be what alot of the RE agents angle for.
Whether this is only for the “gringos” I’ve never experienced this in the states….maybe because i never rented through an agent (?) Surely, everything is negotiable, but this seems to be their starting position (good biz if you can get it).
In the case of short term rentals, their position is that they should get 10 percent each from both renter and owner — Seems a “bit” excessive and probably something to be negotiated down, but for a newbie desperate to get out of a hotel room, you should prob try to negotiate that BEFORE looking for and finding a place you’d like to offer on.
For “non furnished” places — these places are really “unfurnished”. Removal of refridgerators, ovens/stoves, washing machines, dish washers seems to be really common.
In addition, removal of light fixtures, and i’ve heard of “kooky” rental contracts that stipulate that you have to have the entire place repainted (on your dime) — geesh, would you like me to find the next tenant too? :)
Deposits:
Realtors will claim that it’s “law” in the country to demand 5 months deposit from someone moving into a place under a 1 year lease. 5 months?!?! — uh, nothing like “dead money” :)
Anyways, I didn’t pay 5 months, but I’m not sure how easy (or not) it is to wriggle out of this particular “requirement” or it is just one more thing to be negotiated.
In all, these “little” things like 5 months sec deposit, and no appliances can significantly increase the expenses of someone coming down the “check it out” for 6 months to a year, imo.
Like I said, if I’m just repeating an earlier post, or something in your book…well then…uh…”well said” :)
ciao,
fB
>> You really haven’t realted anything that is over the top. The 5 month deposit and the 1 month realtor fee are pretty standard when renting a house–they are a bit more negotiatible when renting an apartment. They main reason for the big deposit is that it can take a very long time for the landlord to evict someone if they do not pay the rent, hence the deposit.
The good news about the deposit is that it is usually (and should be) held in a kind of escrow account at a Government Bank, and I have been told by numerous people that they have never had a problem getting their deposit back, unlike in the US.
The alternative to a deposit is a Guarantee, issued by a landowner, or by some membership organizations. This is something I want to look into for Sociedad Southron to consider.
As far as bare wires and no appliances, that too is standard in most of the non-US world: unfurnished really mean UNFURNISHED AND BARE.
–The Southron
Left by fubarrio on December 4th, 2006