Cutting the middle man / empowering the word of mouth

Unfortunately we expats are dollar signs to rental agencies. They think we are rolling in dough even though some of us just survive, my sister has Kuwait nationality and they now consider her the same as Kuwaiti renters so they refuse to rent to her. They told her to have my mother or myself put the apartment in our names for her. These days the haras of the building also wants his cut, he does nothing and will refuse to give any info of the building owner or office without his pay out. It's a serious haras mafia out there and they get together to bully tenants.

One thing to do is send out a friend with a rental agent, let your friend get the address and as much contact info they can, they give you the info and you go there directly and not pay the rental shark. Most of the time the agents don't want to be bothered in showing up they just give you an address say go look at it and then want first months rent payment to them so if you can cut them out why not?

Very recently I helped a friend to bypass paying 200 KD to the "Haris" (Janitor) as a bribe for getting the flat. Also, I got to know that the Janitor was asking for 350 KD rent and was asking for the 200 KD bribe to make the rent 300.

So, if you guys need help talking with a greedy janitor, I'll be more than happy to help out smart a lying trickster. Just send me a message and if I'm free I'll let you know.

Power to the expats

That's the spirit, justfedup! Not sure I will need your help as I would like to find a place in a 1-3 story building which usually means there is no haris to deal with, but I definitely applaud your offer.

@Ribosom this is a great idea for a mobile app. There is a mobile app were people share location/info of checkpoints and speed cameras. I believe the same idea applies here. If there is such an app, a person would tag the location of a building and put a phone number or something for others who might be looking for a vacancy in an area. The ones who are interested in finding the place would browse the app for such places. Don't you think it will work?

It might, but I think we went flying off the tangent here.

A haris is not really a "janitor" lol He would be more of a building manager.

Sometimes it is easy to mix the two.

Well they can also be described as members of the  haris mafia considering they have their own network of getting money from current and future tenants.

@kuwait411 Mafia is an understatement of how shady the activities of these people are.

@Ribosom I have seen a place in Jabriya at the nearest point to the 5th ring road. Couldn't catch the number though.  Let me know if you're interested.

The situation will only get worse considering the authorities don't have any interest in rent control or theft.

Riba & JFU - i love the initiative -> especially as i will soon find myself in the same boat of looking for a 2BR (marriage looms on the horizon, not much longer to go now)

I suggest we share the info we stumble upon, someone might find a place that doesn't suit him, but would the other person.

agreed! all in favor, say Aye..

Aye 

Did you ever try to be real estate agent? do you know how hard is this job, driving people all day? Do you know what is the cost of having a real estate office? do you know how much you have to pay for adds? Do u know how it is to drive in the summer in 50 C?.
And just to let you know that our office Horizon Q8 Real Estate is cooperating only with owners and watchman who will always inform us if somebody try to rent the apartment or villa on our back. and than it is so easy to take such person to the court. Bealive  me ,we did that in the past, so i don't recommend doing this.
Of course you can go from building to building and find it yourself. But cheating is not the best idea

@dana1909  I'm confused ... what are you trying to say? Who is cheating?

One thing to do is send out a friend with a rental agent, let your friend get the address and as much contact info they can, they give you the info and you go there directly and not pay the rental shark. Most of the time the agents don't want to be bothered in showing up they just give you an address say go look at it and then want first months rent payment to them so if you can cut them out why not?

Somebody put this post so this was my reply to all not to u personally
I am in this business 13 years and it happens only 3 times that somebody was trying to cheat .It ended up in court and we get the money and the person was stop from traveling for 8 month.

dana1909 wrote:

Did you ever try to be real estate agent? do you know how hard is this job, driving people all day? Do you know what is the cost of having a real estate office? do you know how much you have to pay for adds? Do u know how it is to drive in the summer in 50 C?.
And just to let you know that our office Horizon Q8 Real Estate is cooperating only with owners and watchman who will always inform us if somebody try to rent the apartment or villa on our back. and than it is so easy to take such person to the court. Bealive  me ,we did that in the past, so i don't recommend doing this.
Of course you can go from building to building and find it yourself. But cheating is not the best idea

Hello Dana,
I understand that there might be people who can benefit from a service provided by the real estate agent, but I am certainly not one of them. And I definitely don't appreciate being threatened.

What cheating are you talking about?

One thing to do is send out a friend with a rental agent, let your friend get the address and as much contact info they can, they give you the info and you go there directly and not pay the rental shark.


this is above, somebody is having great Idea

if that is not cheating than how u call this?

I am no threatening  nobody just saying how it works. All Real Estate Companies are own  by Kuwaitis and they do follow their business and money

If anyone don't want to use real estate service than he/she should go from blg to blg and find a property but not using a trick to get the address. Would u agree? or am I wrong?

No, I don't endorse what kuwait411 is suggesting. Next time quote the part you are referring to to avoid confusion.

sorry )

if you own a smart phone,
download an app called "4rent" and have your arabic speaking friend search for you,

you will end up contacting the "middle man" often,

they will do the job for you,

once they find you a suitable place, you will have to pay 50% of the rent as a "Fee"

Gl

i think this post spun off on a tangent that has diverged us from the main topic at hand, so lets summarize what is being said and what is required:

1) i believe by "middle-man" we mean the real estate agent. I've never had to use a REA, all the friends I have helped find accommodation drove around their areas, went up buildings, asked for the rent etc. and settled by giving a "tip" to the hares. they ask for like, 50KD, u can just give them 20. now, unless you are talking about renting "second hand", menaing you are not the first tenant, then this amount might be significantly higher. i heard upward of 600KD in HAWALLY now!

2) there is nothing "illegal" about not going thru a REA, in some cases it is beneficial to contact the building owner or realtor handling the rental process directly rather than going thru the hares, who is supposed to not take anything in the first place.

3) this post originally plans for anyone who knows of an empty apartment building or of an apartment that is emptying up in their building to inform others to take advantage of this. initially, i thought it to be a "ghost-to-ghost-hook-up", where we post the details of new buildings for prospective tenants to find. no fees, no illegalities.

so what is the whole issue of illegality here? what did Kuwait411 say that was so offensive to you Dana of the 13 years experience?

The presence of @dana1909 on this thread threatens its purpose. I hope no middleman is following this thread and be literally in the middle of the way friendly exchange of information.

I'll say it flat out .... I don't appreciate the business of real estate brokering and in my opinion it's a polished form of pocket picking.

What is this app called and on what device for checkpoints and cameras?

I am sure it is a public web, so anybody can say his thoughts. If some people need a privacy than I will suggest to  have a private blog. This kind of pages are used for adds so of course many real estate agents are reading.

You don't have to use real estate  agencies to find your accommodation, but many people are saving time and future problems by using it.

If you don't know  the owner of the property, you can have a lot of surprises sometimes. You have to be working for real estate to know of that, so for some it's worth paying a fee to be sure that when you want to leave you can do that or if you have some issues with the property itself. You can wait for the maintenance a few hrs or few days or few weeks. There is a lot of things like that, but OK , it is individual choice.

the problem is not that you are not welcome to share your thoughts on a blog, it is that you call what is being done "illegal", when it is not.

and honestly, i would never go through a real estate agent in kuwait. why pay someone a fee when all you have to do is drive around, call a number, and boom, you're done?

dana 1909...where do I start with you, let's see.....illegal, no it's not illegal to get an apartment on your own and avoid paying money to lazy people who have no interest in showing any properties, I happen to know all too well what it's like working in real estate so spare us your "I have 13 years experience" mumbo jumbo. With everything in Kuwait being so expensive it's difficult for normal people to have to pay the 'REA', the haris and the owner 2 months rent. So do you think an agent deserves pay when all they do is give an address and tells the person go look at it by yourself? If you have so much anger maybe you're working in the wrong field, you chose your job so suck it up. I'd say 50-100 KD commission is good depending on the services provided but in no way deserve a huge amount of money.

Hi everybody,

Can we talk calmly and without animosity here please? This adds nothing constructive to the site.
It would be best if we can come back to the initial subject of the topic which is : Cutting the middle man / empowering the word of mouth.

Thank you 

Priscilla

agreed Priscilla, and i guess what the people are saying is just that. via word of mouth, to move into a new apartment, just type up a quick 1-2 about the building, its location etc. and help people find the apartment where they will live for the next few years.

i for one will definitely be making use of this, as I will be in search of an apartment upon my return in May, after my wedding.

I am moving out of my current place, so if anyone is interested in a fully furnished spacious studio apartment on a rooftop of a 2-storey building with access to the roof terrace located in Fintas block 4, please send me a private message and I will provide you the details. Rent is directly from the owner.

Hope it helps someone.

@ Ribosom > In order to help your message to get across more effectively, do note that you can also drop an ad in the housing section here : https://www.expat.com/en/housing/middle … -rent.html

Thanks 

I know, but reaching a wider audience is what I would like to avoid, and not being the owner of the place it wouldn't be right.