Bali is one of the most sought after locations when Asians and expats look for a place to reload their batteries. Some (or should I say many) people take it a bit further and actually buy a property here.

Vacant land prices have grown with rates that hasn’t been seen elsewhere and luxury property prices increased by 15% from year-to-year. A common option is also to rent a villa as foreign ownership regulations aren’t the most favorable in the region.

Today, I have David Chambat with me who founded Villa-Bali in 2012. Currently living in Singapore, he realized that booking a Bali villa was still a challenging thing to do. The company has dozens of employees and offers neat services to foreigners who wish to rent some of the best villas on the island.

In this interview, he’s sharing some of his best advice when buying and/or renting a villa here.

Hello David, thanks for having you. Let’s start with an introduction so that our readers can know a little bit more about yourself and your company. Where are you currently operating and what services does your company offer?

We started Villa-Finder.com from Singapore in 2012 to offer the best experience when booking and staying in a villa in Asia. Our motto at that time was “It has never been easier to book a villa in Asia”.

In a very fragmented Asian villa market, diverse in terms of style and quality, we are able to not only offer a guaranteed, secured booking service, but also a great Concierge service in our Asian destinations.

Since 2016, we have also started a distribution platform to help villa owners distribute and market their villas worldwide.

Currently, we market over 1,500 villas in Bali, Phuket, Samui, Sri Lanka and Mauritius.

Can you explain about the general regulations that apply when foreigners lease or buy a villa in Bali?

There are 2 types of systems in Bali: Freehold and Leasehold.

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