Bali Long Term Rental Guide

You’re moving to Bali for a year, 2 years, forever? And you decided to give us a go to find your dream property? Great! Let’s jump right into our process of making a great Villa in Bali your new home.

#1 Personal Meeting

We would love to know you personally and invite therefore for a chat in our office to get to know each other. This is also the best way to find out honestly about your personal needs, preferences, expectations and requirements regarding your long term rental in Bali.

Rental period       

Most of our villas are available for Yearly Rental only. This means, the full year’s rate needs to be paid upfront to the property owner latest on the starting date of rental. If you are looking for a shorter time frame, please review our Monthly Listings, as most of the yearly rentals are not available to rent on a monthly basis. Please note that if you intend to rent on a monthly base, the monthly rental rate tends to be higher as the yearly rate divided by twelve months

Location

You will want to live in an environment matching your needs and lifestyle. Consider proximity to the school, your working office and other places you visit on a regular basis. Ask yourself what is more important to you, living close to bars and restaurants or rather a peaceful environment surrounded by rice fields? The choice of your location will also have a big effect on your yearly rental price, as popular areas like Seminyak & Canggu are way pricier than still upcoming ones. To get to know our featured locations more, check out our location guide here.

Setup and facilities

There is a vast amount of beautiful tempting villas out there. While the photos may look breathtaking, ask yourself if they are practical and really matching your own needs. While an open living room area may seem exciting in a tropical climate, think of advantages of an enclosed living room with air conditioned temperatures, no mosquitos and more safety and security. Is a huge garden important to you? Are connecting bedrooms preferred for the little ones? Direct access from the living room to bedrooms? Proximity to the beach for daily surfing? Do you need a silent office space? Security within a villa compound?

Budget

There is a great amount of luxury villas available in Bali and you will most probably find one that is even more exclusive, bigger and more luxurious then the previous one. But the rates are rising accordingly, seemingly with no limits. Set a realistic budget you are comfortable with spending on a yearly rental, basically your ‘ideal budget’. At the same time, set a top budget – the maximum amount you would be ready to pay for an exceptional villa. Start your search with villas that are within your ideal budget range and stretch it slightly if you don’t find a right match. Don’t do the mistake looking for villas above your top budget, as it will result only in disappointment.

Additionally, don’t expect villa owners to reduce the rental rate matching your top budget. Price negotiations can be expected to be between 0 and 10 percent, which will depend on the personal situation of the villa owner himself. Don’t feel insulted if the owner does not want to negotiate at all. Further don’t expect price reductions over ten percent from its advertised rate.

Starting date

The best time to look for villas is around one-two months prior to the start of your rental. Most villa owners don’t want to rent any time later then that as they will have difficulties to rent the villa for this couple of months and thus risk losing rental income.

#2 Property Selection

Once we are more aware about your search criteria, it’s time to select the best villas matching your needs and requirements. Note that we don’t want to waste anybody’s time, therefore we won’t jump into a crazy ride through south Bali to find a lucky match. If you are fully aware of your villa criteria, it can take as few as two days to find your dream villa and get everything settled.

Listing selection

While in our office, we will go through the list of available villas and select the ones that are available and suitable based on your individual search criteria. We represent the villas truthfully and explain you in detail the location, set-up and the pro’s and con’s, as we don’t want a villa to come us a surprise during the villa inspection.  Based on our experience, out of hundreds of villas, solely 5-7 villas are truly suitable.

Villa inspections

Our villa inspections mostly take place in our car with private driver. In other cases we go by motorbike as it’s often much quicker through Bali’s rush hour. We will simply adjust to what you feel more comfortable with. Note that we need a 24 hour notice prior to villa inspections as we need to arrange appointments with villa owners or representatives and in some cases with current guests who don’t want to be disturbed on a short notice. Ultimately we don’t want to stand in front of closed doors! During the inspection we point out villa details and provide you with all the information we are aware of.

Feedback round

After the villa inspection we usually finish the tour at our office to review the inspected villas and ask for your feedback. This is crucial for us to better understand and visualize your ideal villa and adjust the villa selection to your needs. In general we make the experience that 2-3 villa inspection tours are sufficient to cover and see all the suitable villas.

Narrowing down to best options

It won’t serve you to inspect more and more villas just for the sake of having more unsuitable villas to compare with. Instead try exclude the ones you definitely don’t feel comfortable with and leave a limited selection of 2-3 villas that may be an option.

At some stage you may need to compensate from your villa criteria as there may not be a villa with huge land size, big garden, and beachfront location next to restaurants within a limited budget range. Think about what is more important to you and what have been your initial villa requirements prior to your search.

#3 The booking process

Once you’ve found a suitable villa it’s time to proceed with the booking. We will guide you through this process and will assist to assure everything is running smooth. We point out details and raise attention wherever necessary as we believe it is best to clarify everything clearly upfront.

Booking offer and negotiations

Feel free to make an offer for your chosen villa, it’s possible to get a better rental rate as initially advertised. Price negotiations tend to be between 0 and 10 percent of the advertised rate. Please don’t feel surprised though if the owner is not willing to reduce the price at all. We therefore advise to consider the advertised rate as a final one and rather feel delighted if the owner grants a price discount.  We will always try to get the best rate possible out for you!

A full years rent can sum up to quite a chunk if required to pay upfront for the year. Not to be taken for granted, in some cases however villa owners agree to payment installments to facilitate on the tenants financial situation. In such a case payment can be completed in usually two to three installments stretched over a period of about three months. Month by months payments are generally not accepted by villa owners who prefer to rent on a yearly basis.

Rental Agreement

The Rental Agreement is going to be the contract which clarifies the terms and conditions between yourself and the owner. Note that certain terms are going to be set by the villa owner and not by our agency. We will communicate your and the owners requests and amend the standard contract until both of you come to an agreement.

You intend to rent a villa for a full year which you will want to call your home. There won’t be a reception area with a concierge to change the broken light bulb in the bathroom. Even though we will be able to provide you with reliable contacts and advise, you will need to deal with certain situations in your home yourself. We don’t have the capacity to provide full time villa management services and the owner himself may not be in Bali at all. Understanding the terms of your contract will help you to avoid unpleasant surprises. But don’t worry, we will guide you through this process step by step.

Deposit payment

Until any deposit payment is conducted, the villa is still available on the market which means any other agency or interested tenant may put down a deposit and reserve the villa on their name. As a matter of respect, we obviously will ask villa owners to hold the villa on your behalf once you seriously consider renting. Property owners however tend to inform us if there is another party interested in the villa.

We will never ask you deliberately to quickly pay a deposit! Even there might be other guests interested to rent, we often hesitate to deliver this message as it puts an unpleasant pressure to make a quick decision as compared to a well-thought-through one. At the same time we wouldn’t want you to lose a great opportunity by hesitating too long due to minor details.

We conclude that until the major terms and conditions aren’t truly clarified, we rather suggest to lose an opportunity then entering into an agreement with negative consequences!

Security bond

Villa owners generally ask for a security bond to assure the villa condition remains well maintained and all bills are paid at the end of the rental period. The norm is usually around 10 percent of the rental value. To avoid any conflicts, our agency helps to set up a condition checklist as well as a villa inventory list. It is important that you review the condition of the property and point out malfunctions before paying the security bond otherwise you risk to take responsibility for damages that you haven’t caused.

Handover

Finally the day is coming when you get your villa keys and move into your new home! To scope well with the new environment, we will provide you a general handover list with useful information around staffing, internet and phone numbers of various service providers.

Emergencies

Feel free to contact us anytime during your rental if you have any difficulties or need some information. We are available for you anytime. Give us a call or come by our office so we can analyze the situation. Your wellbeing is important to us therefore rest assured that we will look out for a solution whenever required.

Extension

You will have the option and first priority to extend your villa rental. If you intend to stay for an extended period in the villa, we will set up the new Rental Agreement with the owner which will require once again a deposit payment. The full years balance payment would be due upon the starting date of the extended period.

If for any reason you decide not to extend, we will start advertising the property for long term rental again if this is in the interest of the villa owner. Property inspections with other tenants should be granted with a 24 hour notice and shall start one till two month prior to the end of your rental.

Check-out

Upon the end of your rental period, we will come by the villa once again to review villa condition and inventory. Once the owner agrees and accepts the condition he shall return your paid security bond. Let us know if you need any assistance with moving your belongings or if you have any other requests.

As you are ready and set to find your new dream home, browse our awesome yearly villa rentals in Bali here, or contact us directly and let us do the work!

Bali Treasure Properties is a Real Estate Agency based in Bali. Our mission is to provide a new form of personalized, consistent, transparent and honest service for renters, buyers and owners.

Whether you are searching for a long term rental or want buy property and looking for villas for sale & land for sale in Bali – we are happy to help. Contact us by mail info@balitreasureproperties.com and follow us on Facebook.