Apartments are more affordable than you think

JAKARTA (JP): Many expatriates begin their lives here in Jakarta in a kost. While the reason for this is often monetary constraints, there is also the oft-cited reason of wanting to get to know Indonesians; to throw themselves into the hustle and bustle of Jakarta back among the mazes of little streets and alleyways that make up much of the city.

Eventually, though, the thrill of this wears off for most of these expatriates and the annoyances begin to outweigh the advantages. Getting to and from the kost often entails taking an ojek to the main street to find a taxi. And if it is raining, forget the ojek, you will have to call a taxi directly, which is a Herculean effort trying to explain exactly where your little room is. Not to mention those little roads leading to the kost, which are probably flooded.

Most kost have no private kitchens, so you use the common kitchen, if there is one, or find your food at the only readily available "restaurants", alleyway warung that also tend to lose their charm after a while.

Then there is the fact that your average kost consists of one room -- so you eat, sleep, watch TV, entertain, work and do everything else all in the same small space.

And there are just so many people around all the time when you're living in a kost. Houses on top of houses and people everywhere you turn. It's maddening.

This is not to disparage kost or kost dwellers, or dismiss the advantages of living among Indonesians instead of in some gated housing complex or in a high-rise apartment, where the only Indonesian you meet is the maid.

But eventually many expatriates leave their kost, either for a house or, more often, an apartment. And they do so to get away, to get some privacy, to have their own little piece of Jakarta where they can spread out and relax, take a deep breath and exhale.

And why not? Isn't this called for in a city where you spend your days in bumper-to-bumper traffic, your weekends in packed malls and your nights being elbowed out of the way in crowded bars and clubs?

Besides the desire to get a little place apart from the noise of the city, apartments here appeal to expatriates because they are, for the most part, immensely affordable.

Whether in rupiah or dollars, expats can get more apartment for their money here than they could back in their own countries. This is particularly true for those coming from such overcrowded housing markets as London, New York, most of California and so on.

For what many expats would have to spend back home for a cell- like one-bedroom apartment with walls so thin you can hear when the person in the next apartment rolls over in his sleep, they can get immensely decent apartments in Jakarta that are centrally located, have a view (though usually obstructed by pollution), 24-hour security and amenities such as a swimming pool, tennis courts, etc.

The fact is, this is not to say expatriates are happy about Indonesia's troubles, the situation here allows for many expatriates to afford apartments they couldn't swing on their salaries back home.

This is not to say all expats here have money to burn on fancy apartments or that all apartments, no matter how fancy, are within the grasp of all expatriates. This just isn't so. Many expats come to this country with other goals than making money and many apartments are simply out of reach of expatriates not sent over here by their companies on a fat dollar salary.

That said, many foreigners enjoy the many benefits and advantages of apartments in Jakarta. Lounging by the pool on a lazy Sunday afternoon, looking down on the city from their balconies on sleepless nights and feeling safe and secure in their towers, with security guards at the gates 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Security

Ironically enough, it is this very security that sometimes irks expats. One such apartment dweller told me he was planning on finding a new place because the security guards were always there at the front door.

He felt he was the one under surveillance and his girlfriend and him felt uncomfortable when they came home at night to find four or five security guards watching them get out of the taxi and enter the building.

This is a frequent complaint from expats; the extreme presence of security guards. No matter what time they come home, two, three in the morning, there are the guards to meet them whoever they are with. It is a feature of apartments many foreigners are not used to or comfortable with, being accustomed to apartments in their own countries where no one notices whether they come and go.

There is also the sometimes sticky issue of having someone to come in and clean the apartment and do the laundry. The average expat living in the average apartment back home does their own cleaning and their own laundry. It's a matter of money and culture, for in many countries only the rich have servants.

In a kost the rent often includes a daily or every-other day cleaning of the room, plus laundry services, which is easy enough to justify - the rooms are usually so small it takes about five minutes to clean and the laundry, well, it's so nice someone is doing it for you, you just don't think abut it.

But when you get your own apartment you are faced with cleaning it yourself or making the conscious decision of hiring someone to clean it for you and paying them a wage which, if converted to your particular foreign currency, is embarrassingly low.

Some expats continue to do the cleaning themselves, citing such reasons as not wanting strangers in their apartments. Whatever the reason, this means once or twice a week, they are scrubbing toilets and showers, sweeping floors, not to mention the dishes that always seem to be piling up and the laundry that needs washing and ironing.

But most expats do hire someone to do their cleaning, and everything else they might need doing. They sometimes like to pretend to feel good about giving someone a job, no matter how little that job pays. But really they just figure this will probably be the only time they will be able to afford the luxury of having someone come in and clean, cook, iron, wash and scrub, so why not take advantage of it.

That is probably a good suggestion, take advantage of it before going back home and shelling out half your salary for the privilege of holing up in some dreary flat with a bedroom like a walk-in closet and walls so thin you can't only hear your neighbor, you can actually see their silhouettes.

You might think you can't afford to get into an apartment here, but you can't afford not to. (Ferry Daniels)