If you’re looking for a lucrative investment in Bali Villas, your safest bet is in property. The increasing influx of tourists encourages higher development of the tourism industry, giving visitors a diverse choice of vacation experiences. Bank of Indonesia quotes an incredible growth of wealth from Bali’s tourism in the past five years from 9.3% of Indonesia’s GDP to 15% this year. Indonesia as a whole is gearing up towards a bright future in tourism.

Before you get into the property business, you need to know the two types of property ownership style: freehold and leasehold.

Freehold property

This is just a fancy term for property that you truly own, land and building. Even if you’re still paying off your mortgage, you essentially have the property ownership certificate (even if the mortgage institution is holding it as collateral). You have absolute control over your property because you are the freeholder of this freehold property.

There is no time limit to your ownership, and you are entitled to make any improvements to the property as you see fit, provided you have a permit. You are entitled to lend the property to a tenant for a periodic ground rent and for a specific purpose, also provided you have a permit. Be aware that the freeholder’s certificate is only granted to Indonesian citizens or to those who have a spouse that holds Indonesian citizenship.

Rented property

Before we move on to defining the term “leasehold property”, it is important to note the difference between renting and leasing. When you rent a property, you are given the right to use the property as a place to live or conduct business. But you are not entitled to use the property as a product of a business itself, in other words you can’t rent it out to a sub-tenant. The freeholder is given the greatest responsibility for the maintenance of the property.

Ground rent is due daily, monthly, or yearly, as written in a contract agreed between tenant and landlord, but there is no definite agreed time period for that contract. If the tenant decides to stop renting, the contract “expires”, and the last ground rent is settled.

Leasehold property

You can’t make money from rented property. But in a leasehold property, a freeholder arranges a contract to the lessee to essentially own the property temporarily for a set amount of years. The lessee has the right to make improvements to the property as well as renting it to sub-tenants. Of course, not being the original owner of the land (and the property which sits on the land), the lessee will give up control and right of the property, once the contract expires.

There is also a caveat to this type of agreement. The contract does not expire before its due date, and therefore the freeholder must receive ground rent as long as the contract holds. You are entitled to “sell” a leasehold property at any time, and transfer the burden of the contract to another buyer. Be warned however, that the price for leasehold properties will depreciate over time, since fewer people are willing to buy homes on a short lease.

Considering the risks of owning a leasehold property, the benefits outweigh the cost. It is much cheaper to lease than to buy full ownership of a property. It relieves you of the long-term commitment, but you’d immediately receive steady cash flow from visitors. If you wish to browse through potential assets, go ahead and visit Bali Coconut Living. We are more than happy to guide you through the ins and outs of property management in Bali.