As mentioned in my previous post, we finally decided to take the plunge…and look for a home in Singapore to call our own. Huge step for us…coz it’s gonna be the BIGGEST purchase in our lives! But anyway, we needed a love nest anyway…so we can start filling it with lil juniors hehe
Anyway, the start of the long house hunting process was rather painful for us. Mind you, it was at the time when property prices in Sg were at its peak. It didn’t really bother us that the actual valuation of the house was high, coz this can be covered by our mortgage which will be deduced from our monthly CPF contribution. What really irks us is the cash premium that we have to pay the sellers. In Singapore, when one buys a resale HDB flat…a Cash Over Valuation (COV) is needed. Some ppl say this is to cover whatever renovation works that have been carried out by the Seller. Hrmm…to me..this is plain rubbish…but what can we do? We still need to find a house!
So, the first few houses were rather dissapointing.
First house: Owner is not staying in the unit, but instead RENTED out the whole unit to 9 China people! (No offense to anybody reading this blog who might fall into this category, or are affiliated with the country in one way or another). Well, it was a jaw-dropping experience for us alright. Picture this: Floor was filled with dirt (the agents asked us not to take off our shoes), kitchen cabinets was falling off, toilets were beyond disgrace (seriously, even the public toilets were cleaner!), and the rooms were disastrous! Double bunks lined up in weird patterns and clothes and stuffs were strewn everywhere! OMG, i couldn’t even think when I was inside the house! Asking COV? 30K thanks, but no thanks!
Second house: Very normal and plain looking. Unoccupied at the moment. Didn’t like it coz the living room layout was in some weird L-shaped. Plus, the block was still undergoing lift upgrading, hence not paid. Really bad for Singapore PRs, coz we will get billed S$20K, unlike citizens who pay only about $2k.
Third house: OMG, we loved it. Big, spacious and nicely renovated! Drawback? Asking COV is 40k…which we were not willing to pay at that time. Hrmm…got to let it go *heartbroken*
Rested and stopped the house search after that as prices were getting too crazy! Started again a month later.
Won’t get into the nitty gritty by going through each and every one, so will just skip towards almost the end of our journey okays?
I think it was our 8th or 9th house. We were kinda desperate already by then as there were rumours that the prices will be getting even higher in weeks to come. Decided to offer 36k on one of our “second choice” house. Seller’s agent says the seller will only close at 42k. Whatt…u got to be kidding me. The house wasn’t even majorly renovated and we still need to do some renovation works of our own! Hrmphh decided to let that be…only to have the seller’s agent call our agent a few days later. “Seller is keen to take your offer. Why don’t you come down with your clients on Wednesday and we’ll close the deal by then? I will get him to close at 36k!”
So off we went to the house on that day….only to find a BUNCH of people coming to view/offer on the unit as well! GRRRR we felt like chopping off the agent’s head….we were cheated. Seems like we were up against another buy (couple from China). Was pretty discouraged by then, coz China people = lots of money! No way we can win their offer. Seller agent asked our agent what’s the highest we can go. We told him 38K. He called back later to tell us the other buyers r offering 39K, do we want to up that. No thank you very much….we are not interested! Stupid agent…playing slick games with us @#$%^&
Pressured our agent (who’s also hubby’s friend) to find a better house for us. And, just like that…we walked into our 10th house…and felt at ease and at home…like it belonged to us! We can actually imagine what we were gonna do with the house. Not only was the unit very spacious, the owners did a fair bit of renovation works as well. Owner asked for 40K and we gave that amount….signed and sealed the deal on that day!
Pheww…we felt so relieved after that…finally we have found our home. Altho it’s kinda far frm the city, but at least it’s home. So right now, we will be having our first appointment in 2 weeks time…and 6 weeks after that, we will be having the keys to our house! Yipeeee
But we can’t do anything to it till end of Dec tho…as the current owners need the extra time to clear their loan and to fulfill the conditions of their new house.
Oh well, a bit extra time for us to save more money i guess. Let’s just hope that our renovation works can be done in time for CNY! *shivers*
Task for now: Look for a suitable contractor/Interior designer to do up our new home!