Lisa Siregar

Kost tenants get what they pay for with the most basic, above, having a tiny bedroom and access to a shared bathroom for Rp 450,000 a month. (JG Photo)

Cutting the Kost of Living

For newcomers to Jakarta, the first and most serious consideration is often where to live. With most apartments requiring advance payment of at least six months’ rent, the initial outlay can be prohibitive for new graduates starting their first job or those with a home elsewhere who have to commute to the city for work. For an increasing number of such people, a kost is a more convenient and affordable option.

Called a share-house by some, a boarding house by others, a kost is a rented room in a building, smaller than most apartments and usually at a lower all-inclusive rental price.

Bendungan Hilir (Benhil) and Karet Pedurenan are popular areas for kost, as both are located near business districts and many office buildings. A room in a kost can be a small bedroom in a private house that the renter shares with the owner, a private room detached from the landlord’s house or a modern, minimalist-designed room in an apartment-style building with a private bathroom, Internet access and flat-screen TV.

For Tia, 25, who works at a restaurant in Kuningan, renting a room in a kost means saving money. Her home is in the satellite city of Bogor and a round trip from her workplace in Jakarta would cost Rp 25,000 (around $2.50) a day, adding up to at least Rp 500,000 per month.

“Right now, I rent a kost in Tebet with a roommate and only pay Rp 300,000,” she said. Co-workers at her previous restaurant first suggested this particular kost to her. When she started her current job, Tia said, she could have moved closer to Kuningan but the cheapest kost she could find was Rp 500,000 per month, for a much smaller room than she shares now.

Astrid Amalia, 32, whose home is in Cibubur, East Jakarta, said renting a kost in Setiabudi not only saved her money, but also time and energy. If she were not renting a room, she would spend three to four hours each day traveling from Cibubur to her workplace in Karet Semanggi, South Jakarta.

Astrid first chose a room in a kost over an apartment when she graduated and started working 10 years ago because the payment terms better suited her.

“With a kost, you just pay for a month and it’s all inclusive — no extra charges at all,” she said.

“At that time, I didn’t know if I was going to stay long at my first workplace, so I decided it was better to live in a kost, just in case I moved.”

She has stuck with kost because the flexibility still suits her and she doesn’t want to have to pay for extras such as utility bills.

Her current room is in a new building for women only, for which she pays Rp 1.5 million a month. Her bedroom has a private bathroom, an air-conditioner and a television and the rent includes breakfast, daily cleaning and free laundry service for two pieces of clothes a day.

The Benhil area of Central Jakarta is home to lots of more traditional kost in which landlords rent out rooms in their own homes.

Mei, who owns a house on Jalan Taman Hidayah, charges Rp 500,000 for a 3-by-3-meter bedroom without air-conditioning. Women can rent rooms inside the house and rooms for men are available in an attached building. All residents, including Mei’s family, share the one bathroom.

“At night, they can hang out with my family and we usually watch TV together,” Mei said. For security reasons, however, she doesn’t give the tenants a spare key to her house, saying they can always wake her if they come home late.

Several houses on the same street as Mei’s offer more or less the same facilities — a small bedroom with a closet and the use of a shared bathroom, with prices ranging from Rp 425,000 to Rp 850,000. A few meters from Mei’s house are two huge, new buildings, one of which is still being finished, with rooms available from Rp 1.2 million to Rp 2.5 million. Expats are likely to be charged a higher price than Indonesians, said a caretaker at one of the Benhil buildings.

On the main streets of Benhil, prices increase to up to Rp 3 million per month for rooms in modern, new buildings. One such building, Rumah 27 on Jalan Bendungan Jatiluhur, offers daily cleaning, bed linen, air-conditioning, refrigerator, television, hot and cold running water, daily laundry and wi-fi Internet access, plus the use of a lobby lounge.

In Karet Pedurenan, an area behind the Ambasador Mall, a large number of rooms are on offer in bigger, more luxurious buildings. A 15-minute walk from the main street, Jalan Dr. Satrio, sits Plaza 68, a three-story building with 100 rooms priced at Rp 2 million to Rp 3 million per month. The kost offers air-conditioning, Internet access, room cleaning and daily laundry, plus a spacious parking lot in front of the building.

Doni Wiyanto, said his family opened the kost two years ago on land they had owned for a long time.

“To start a kost business would be very expensive if you didn’t own the land in the first place,” he said. Dino returned from the United States just two months ago, and now helps run Plaza 68 and a futsal field just a few meters away that the family rents out.

“Our biggest expense is electricity,” he said. Right now, 80 people live in the building and Doni said that, with the permission of tenants, his staff check rooms and turn off the air-conditioning if it has been left on by mistake.

The monthly payment system may be handy for tenants but is a potential trouble spot for landlords. Edi Winata, who owns 40 kost rooms just a few meters from Plaza 68, said some tenants fall behind on their rent and then skip out without paying, or returning his keys.

“I have to change the door lock, which means another extra cost for me,” he said. Edi has lived in the area since 1960 and used to own a batik studio until it was closed by the government because he did not have a business permit.

Edi started his kost business in 2003, when there were only a few kost in the neighborhood. He sold some land he owned in Kebayoran Baru so that he could set up his business at a cost of more than Rp 1 billion.

He said he was worried about all the new competitors coming into the market, especially those operating without permits. “There are a lot of them, especially the small ones in houses owned by pribumi [natives of Indonesia],” Edi said. He considers it unfair that owners with permits have to pay taxes while unlicensed operators don’t.

The other downsides of being a landlord, he said, include the high cost of water, as some tenants let the water run for 15 to 30 minutes when taking a shower. There are also occasional fights among his residents, he said, but nothing serious has happened.

Agus Mulyadi, the head of a neighborhood association in Karet Pedurenan, said the local boom in the kost business started in 2005.

“During an election season like this, it means extra work for me because I have to update the data of the people who live here,” he said.

There are 33 separate families in the neighborhood, but before the legislative elections in April, hundreds of names of temporary residents had to be added to the voters list.

Aside from that, he thinks the community lives together peacefully. Agus said that he sometimes leads local efforts to clean up the neighborhood and everyone participated, but the permanent residents and the kost dwellers.


Rental Price Ranges

Kost:
Low (Below Rp 1 million)
Small bedroom, shared bathroom

Average (Rp 1 million – 2 million)
Bedroom, private bathroom, TV, air-con, laundry, daily cleaning, hot and cold running water

High (Rp 2 million – 3 million and above)
Bedroom, private bathroom, air-con, hot and cold running water, laundry, daily cleaning, refrigerator, possibly flat-screen TV, Internet access and cable

Apartments:
Average (Rp 10 million-15 million)
Standard two bedrooms, furnished, in a complex with pool and gym

High (Rp 20 million-30 million and above)
Luxury 2-3 bedroom apartment, furnished, in a complex with pool, gym and other facilities

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