A family flat in Maafannu, three bedrooms, fifth floor of a six storey building with no lift, which had been on the market with somebody else for three months at 18,000 rufiyaa a month.
We told the landlord the flat was worth 16,500 and showed him why: four comparable lettings in the same ward, two of them with a lift and renting at eighteen and nineteen, two without and renting at sixteen and a half and seventeen. The stairs are worth about fifteen hundred rufiyaa a month in that ward and there is nothing to be done about it. Three empty months at eighteen thousand is fifty four thousand rufiyaa of nothing, against eighteen thousand a year given up on the rent. He agreed in the meeting.
Then we described it properly, which meant saying the difficult things in the listing rather than at the viewing. Fifth floor, no lift, sixty eight stairs. Own water meter and own electricity meter, which is genuinely good news and worth naming. Unfurnished apart from the kitchen cabinets and two air conditioners. Space for two motorcycles inside the gate. Two months in advance and one month deposit.
Nine days and eleven viewings later it went to a family who had already decided they did not mind the stairs and were tired of being shown flats where the water was a mystery. They signed an inventory with thirty one photographs, both sides signed the meter readings, and the landlord had a receipted advance and a written agreement in both languages before the keys moved.
They are still there in the second year at the same rent, which is a decision we advised and would advise again.