Bali is known as a top tourist destination. But since the pandemic more and more foreigners are taking up residence there in the more or less long term. The low cost of living there, the increasingly widespread use of telework and special visas are responsible for this change. Indeed, since June 2022, Indonesia allows retired foreigners who are not eligible to obtain a residence permit to settle for a long period in the country. According to Sandiaga Uno, the Minister of Tourism, the country plans to also introduce a special five-year visa for digital nomads. Result: there are crowds on the island.
“In the last eighteen months, I have never seen so many people in Bali”, said to Business Insider Nathan Ryan, the founder of Bali Realty. “In terms of sales, we’re probably doing three or four times our usual average.” He notes that Russians and Ukrainians are particularly numerous looking to buy houses, in addition to Americans, New Zealanders, Australians and Europeans.
For the first time, it is difficult to rent a house for a month or more, and it is also increasingly difficult to buy a really inexpensive house, because the market has become very competitive. Two other real estate agents specializing in expat properties, Marc Hirte and Amadeus Förster, say they receive “inquiries from all over the world, but especially from people living in expensive cities like Hong Kong, Singapore and Los Angeles.” According to Nathan Ryan, remote work is a factor in this evolution:
“Sometimes our buyers are couples in which one of the spouses may need to return to Singapore or Hong Kong once a week or a month for work.”
Faced with this increase in demand, developers are busy selling to foreigners houses that have not yet come out of the ground. Amadeus Förster is amazed at the magnitude of the phenomenon:
“I was myself surprised. Probably more villas were built in the last two years than in the three or four years before the pandemic.”
Business Insider points out that these newly built villas now cost up to 30 million Indonesian rupees per month to rent, or around 2,000 euros. At this price, foreigners who have money on hand prefer to buy.