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Hi onefogarty, it was hard for me to glean everything out of your post (please consider the use of paragraphs), but it appears no one will rent a unit to you without wanting a deposit to hold it. Especially ahead of the move-in date. Is this correct?

Based on my experience, Philippines or stateside, I don't know many places where "giving your word" is enough to secure a rental unit anymore, because it presents a significant risk to the landlord.  Even here in the States, a landlord will want a security deposit at time of rental, meaning when you commit to take the unit and sign a lease. The move-in date might be a few weeks, or a month down the road, but the deposit is given as part of the contract agreement, to hold the unit.

If you think about it why would a landlord pull a unit off the market without a deposit? I foolishly did that myself a few years ago with my rental townhome here, for a couple that were so convincing and guess what? They bailed on me. Cost me a month of lost income. Lesson learned.

The other reason they don't just "trust you", even with  a signed contract, is because it is difficult to enforce contracts in the Philippines. There is no quick small claims court. It might take a year to gain a judgement and that will also be unenforceable. You are a foreigner and can disappear at any time.

Lastly, I did the six pre-dated check thing in 2014 when I first moved to Cebu (using GF 's account) but ever since then just gave two months advance to hold the unit, signed a lease, and it was always waiting for me on the move-in date (when I also paid that first month's rent). Never an issue.

I have dealt with both landlords and leasing agents, but you do need to be cautious with the latter to make sure they are legit. Best to always work with the landlord/owner as other people will undoubtedly try to get in on the action. So many people are desperate for a piece of the pie in a poor country. Try to be sensitive to the cultural and socioeconomic differences.

Yep, can be difficult here especially with some of the sharks out there.

We were the same 9 years ago, renting a studio apartment week by week through Air B+B while looking to rent a condo.
After plenty of frustrations and overpriced properties found a nice lady we got on well with. She wanted all of the things that were mentioned by the OP and fair enough, the price was 30K per month.

We negotiated the following.
2 month bond, 12 months rent paid in advance but at 25K per month so 350K direct deposit to her account.
Supply and instal split system A/C to the living area, not a problem as it was on her to do list, there were already split systems in 2 of the 3 bedrooms.
Supply and instal a ducted range hood over the cooker, again not a problem.

So she got a heap of money up front and no worries about collecting rent, we saved 60K by paying up front and at the end of the lease we got our 50K deposit back within a week. Maybe we were lucky.

Ben found that FB worked the best as you are generally dealing directly with the owners.

Good luck onefogarty.

Cheers, Steve.

First, last, and a months deposit is commonplace here. I don't see the issue. You can't change the culture, and it sounds like the OP isn't going to be able to adapt.

This is a useless response. I only read the first bit because I could tell that you didn’t get it.

Yup you understand what I meant. Thank you

Who are you even responding to? Please identify or quote.

onefogarty wrote:

Yup you understand what I meant. Thank you

I assume this was for me?

As I said perhaps we were lucky and found the 1% of landlords that took our word. The apartment was tenanted when we looked at it for another 2 weeks. The owner trusted what we said in a face to face meeting and was 3 weeks before we signed lease as there were some amendments and funds cleared to her account.

I have been a landlord on and off for 30+ years in Australia and even here in PH. (let the previous owner of our property rent it back for 2 years,,,,,,,, lease agreement and all, honestly that was a mistake, the place was trashed with no recourse). I have also been a tenant so understand both sides well.

Generally with renting or purchasing a property there are protocols to follow. It would be like the guy that wanted to buy one of my cars in Oz asking if we could hold it for him until he could secure a loan. Yes I can do that with a holding deposit and I will take it off the market, but I don't have any cash with me, come back with cash mate. Funnily enough he did come back the next day with a thousand dollar deposit (not refundable) and 2 weeks later fronted up with a bank cheque. He made the commitment and I took it off the market.

What's the old saying? In God we trust, all others cash.

I would also suggest to be very careful here with renting and leases, we came across a few shonky operators that were trying to sub let as tenants. As said try FB rentals in the areas you are looking at.

Cheers, Steve.

onefogarty wrote:

This is a useless response. I only read the first bit because I could tell that you didn’t get it.

If you were responding to me, please tell me "what I didn't get"? At least give me that amount of  courtesy after I spent 20 min drafting a thoughtful response to you in order to try and help you out.

RENTER: I guess giving your word is not enough for landlords in the Philippines (and also in America.)
LANDLORD: I regret I took the tenant for his / her word. I now lost some rental income.

Our experience in the US: 
My husband and I did not own our house in the US. We rented. The landlords there will not trust your word. Usual requirements before moving in to a rental unit in California:

- 2 months' deposit in CASHIER'S CHECK, not personal check (cashier's check is guaranteed by a bank. Just that requirement implies that the landlord does not trust that you have enough funds in your checking account)
- 1 month advance (can be personal check)
- credit score / full credit check (for both me and my husband) plus the receipt for the credit report. (In the past, before identity theft was a big issue, the landlord asked for your SS number, a fee for the credit check, and do the checking themselves to avoid fake credit reports.)
- renter's insurance

If you tell the landlord you want to rent the unit, he / she MIGHT reserve the unit for you for one day for you to prepare the deposit and other requirements. But without the deposit, the unit is still up for grabs. You can't reserve the unit for a fee.

Also, you can't move in your stuff before the start date in the lease contract. For the 2-3 days we need to move in / move out, we would be paying for 2-days' rent for the old place and for the new one. US$50 for late rent + a percent of the rent per day of delay.

Here in the Philippines:
If a prospective tenant expresses interest in renting a unit but cannot come up with the deposit yet, he needs to give a "reservation fee," (sometimes, it's called "earnest fee") otherwise, the unit is still up for grabs. A reservation fee is a lot less than the deposit and would be credited to the deposit if the deal pushes through. The prospective tenant forfeits it if he / she backs out.   

A reservation fee is meant to protect the landlord from unscrupulous tenants who promise to rent a unit, but are actually still looking and undecided. If a landlord takes a prospective tenant's word that he would rent the unit, rejects other applicants, and then first tenant backs out, the landlord would have lost the opportunity to have the unit rented, and perhaps lose income. 

Also, a reservation fee is an incentive for a tenant to make good on their promise to rent the unit.  Giving a reservation fee also implies that the tenant is serious in renting the unit.

In any business, if you put trust on someone who has nothing to lose, you could end up losing money.

I am going to earnestly wait until the end of the month to search for units to avoid the reservation fee.

I'll add my two cents worth from renting in Las Vegas. The last apartment we lived in for eight years, the management was very good, if you had any repairs to be made an email to the office would get it repaired or replaced the next day.

Camden is a national company with many complexes across the US. While living there they were voted in the top 10 companies to work for.

After looking at several senior complexes (age restricted over 55) we settled on Camden. Our security deposit was one months rent plus the cost of a credit check and back ground check. Also they checked with the previous complex where we lived for five years. Everything checked out OK so no further money was requested.

The first months rent/deposit was paid two weeks prior to our move in (the next day after viewing the apartment.) They didn't mind, as from background and credit check they knew we were good tenants.

Their rental agreement was for 6 months, 12 months or 15 months. We always chose 15 months as we suspected rent increases. Matter of fact I requested a longer lease which was turned down.

Every time I renewed the lease I bargain with them and always got a better price and also asked for something in return, the last time a larger refrigerator. With bargaining our rent was $300 a month cheaper than the next door apartment who had actually been living there longer than us. Most tenants in the complex were retire, had money and just accepted the rent increases without a whimper.

When we moved out we requested an extension of one month which was granted without penalty. At our expense we hired cleaners and afterwards had a walk through with the complex manager and everything was fine.

When we moved out our rent was about $1,000 USD per month which included water, cable tv / internet and garbage collection. The complex was located in Henderson, NV. Henderson was voted one of Americas safest cities.

The apartment included aircon / heating, microwave, large oven /stove, refrigerator, washer /dryer, ceiling fans, internet / cable.

Also had a large swimming pool, hot tube, sauna, BBQ, library, covered reserved parking and gym. The clubhouse also had two computers and printers.

As Elvis said "Viva Las Vegas".