Find a rental apartment
Short-term lodging
Shortest-term lodging is only available at a minimum stay of three months. There are many options for short-term lodging in Singapore.
While Airbnb isn't permitted in Singapore, there's a large selection of coliving hotels and serviced apartments available at a variety of price points.
Luxe accommodation
Serviced Apartments
Alma House
Pan Pacific Beach Road
Pan Pacific Orchard
Budget accommodation
Mini-studio lodging
Lyf Funan
Lyf Farrer Park
Lyf One North
Habyt Cantonment
Coliving houses
Figment
Serviced Apartments
Great World Serviced Apartments
Far East Hospitality Group Apartments
Dorm-style lodging
ST Signature
Capsule hotels
Long-term accommodation
Highrises
Most housing in Singapore is in the form of highrise apartments. Many of these are built by Singapore's Housing Development Board (called HDBs), but many others are built by private developers (and a bit more luxurious).
We recommend using PropertyGuru and 99.co to search for rental options. You can filter by region, proximity to MRT line, or amenities to find options you'd like. From there, you can typically WhatsApp the leasing agent and arrange a tour shortly after.
For highrise housing in most of the country, a room in basic apartments within a 20 minute commute from the city centre go for about $1.5k/month, and more lux/high end apartments go for about $2.2k-3k/month.
Apartments right in the city center (the CBD) as well as Orchard and River Valley tend to be some of the most expensive, but given Singapore's small size, it's often possible to live just minutes away for a lot less money.
There's no "bad" part of Singapore; there are some that are just a bit less convenient to get where you want to go, but with low taxi fares and an abundant MRT and bus system, it's easy to get around.
As renting can be competitive, often agents will request something called a "Good Faith Deposit" to reserve the property first if you fully agree with the asking price. These deposits are refunded to you if you do not ultimately end up renting the property.
It is OK for the GFD to be provided to the agent in advance of a formal contract; the only thing to be careful about is to make sure the agent is formally licensed. Always look up your agent's license number and make sure everything checks out before sending the GFD.
You can look up the license number here: https://www.cea.gov.sg/aceas/public-register/sales/1.
However, beware of scammers that ask for a deposit to view a place!
Shophouses
Singapore also maintains 6,500 historic shophouses, scattered all across the city. These date back to when Singapore was a port and fishing village, and can be found especially in areas like Chinatown, Tanjong Pagar, Outram Park, Tanjong Katong, Mountbatten, Marine Parade, Siglap, and more. If you're looking for a place with more character & don't want to live in an apartment, shophouses are excellent.
Shophouses typically are 3 or 4 bedroom units, and often are similarly priced to highrises (after splitting with roommates).
If you want to live in a shophouse but don't want to tackle finding roommates or finding a master tenant for the lease, you can always consider coliving options like Figment and Habyt, which offer shophouse rentals and handle the furnishing and splitting for you.
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