Rental property owners need a quick turnover of qualified tenants when they have vacancies if they are to minimize their temporary losses. Prospective tenants can find properties in the areas they are most interested in. Online rental listing sites play a vital role for landlords and renters because listings are available for all to see with attractive photographs and relevant information about the rental property and its services.
Over the last 15 years, online listing websites have increased property exposure and benefitted both property owners and tenants, whether they are buying or renting. Zillow is, of course, one of the best-known platforms, but that is in the U.S. Across the globe, property websites are being created to suit the needs of specific markets, and these are thriving.
One of the major advantages of connecting property owners with tenants online is they can research the available properties even before they move to a new area. They can do this from the comfort of their home and save an enormous amount of time and money. Also, once they find the most suitable property, they can seamlessly connect with the owners or agents.
The trend for finding rooms for rent online has spread across the globe, and Malaysia is no exception. The country is a thriving economic hub in the region of South East Asia and attracts people from other countries for work, tourism, and educational opportunities.
Growing demand for rooms to let in Johor Bahru continues in proportion to the state’s bustling economy. Opportunity needs to meet demand, especially in the rental market. This led to the creation of a new room rental website called Abilik. It currently serves the room rental needs of the state of Johor but is soon set to expand to the rest of Malaysia.
Johor’s economy drives the rental market
With over 400 kilometers of exotic coastline, the state of Johor is situated on the south Malaysian Peninsula, and much of the state is covered in dense tropical forests.
This is an economically productive region of Malaysia with a high level of manufacturing, trading, farming, ecotourism, and growing medical tourism. Its proximity to Singapore, which it shares maritime borders with, has benefited the state with investors and tourists pouring in.
Johor is a culturally diverse society and is an area where people flock for work prospects. International schools and universities attract students to the area, but the second most populous state in Malaysia also has a large non-citizen population, which includes tourists.
Finding room to let in Johor Bahru and other cities in the state can be challenging. Johor has several major cities, and some of these include Skudai, Iskandar Puteri, Batu Pahat, and Pasir Gudang.
A new room for rent website in Malaysia
Creating a room for rent website in Malaysia was always a dream for Abilik’s developer, Mr. Lim Ban Seng. He has first-hand knowledge and experience of the Malaysian property market and understands the frustrations often faced by renters looking and rental property owners.
Opportunities to match the right space or the appropriate renter are often lost through the classical channels, and he realized the room rental market needed a platform that could serve both.
Mr. Lim Ban Seng became increasingly aware that renters and rental property owners complained of being unable to connect. “People would spend days phoning around and viewing countless properties just to find in the end they were unsuitable. My website takes the search online. Property owners list the rooms, and the renter can determine which rentals suit them best. Nobody ends up wasting any time.”
The current climate has increased the demand for rental properties across Malaysia, with Malaysians showing a reluctance to buy right now. In Johor, Pasir Gudang, the industrial port city of Johor, is currently the most sought-after area in the state with the highest rental yields.
Increasingly, rental websites are becoming popular in Malaysia, and abilik.my is proving to be a popular choice. Other players in the field include roomz.asia and land.plus, but they don’t concentrate solely on room rentals.
Lim Ban Seng’s main advantage is that it only focuses on room rentals, so it targets a specific need in the market. Property owners post their room rental ads for free, allowing them to also include up to 15 pictures and a detailed description. Tenants can also use the website to look for rooms without charge.
For now, the platform is focused in Johor, but will soon be expanding to the whole of Malaysia where the demand for property rentals continues to grow in all its major cities.
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