Apartment Hunting

Looking for good and affordable place to stay in Singapore, is like looking for a parking space in Suria KLCC on a weekend! It depends entirely on your luck of the day.

Thank goodness, my employer is kind enough to give us a serviced 3-bedroom apartment (see attached pictures) for the 1st month while we look for a permanent dwelling. The kids loved the serviced apartment so much since it has a swimming pool, nice playground and most importantly it's right above a shopping mall which has a 24-hours McD outlet. If only we can afford to set aside SGD5K a month to rent this place, that would save us a lot of headache on apartment hunting.

Alyssa inspecting (a.k.a keypohcheeing) the place.

The views taken from our serviced apartment (temporary heaven).

I have collected many interesting stories along my journey of apartment hunting. But I feel that this story of a friend, tops all of my stories combined.

My friend is single professional male. He rented a master bedroom of an HDB flat. The owner, an old local guy, lives right in the living room. My friend thought this should be okay considering the rental is quite cheap. He went away on business and came back a week later, only to find the living room is now divided into 3 smaller rooms, enough to place a single bed in each partition. Wait... that is not the climax of the story (you'll see later, why I used the word climax). One nite, when my friend came home, the owner knocked on his door "Eh! You don't come out ah!. If you hear anything funny, just pretend you don't hear anything ar...". Then it hits my friend, the landlord rents out the partition room by the hour! I guess it's his way to boost Singapore tourism industry, especially for those having a transit from Bangkok.

Finally, after being able to differentiate from a genuine "immaculate condition" & "tastefully renovated" to the sugar-frosted advertisement in the paper, we found a place which we can tolerate, though have to fork out a good SGD500/mth more than our original budget!!! I just have to make do without facial & spa treatment for a while, I guess. *sigh*.

Our place is quite a distant from the MRT, but close by to a bus stop. I have to take 2 buses to work, which takes up about an hour of travelling time each way. With a car, I can easily arrive at work in less than 15 min. But with public bus, I just have to get used to getting up early in order to be in the office on time. And not to forget the walking up and down TWO cross-over bridges.

Below are the summary of certain terms which Singaporean used which might be misleading to foreigners (like me):

1. Within walking distance (...to MRT, bus stop, eataries, etc)

- This should mean a good 1/4 mile for sure! For me, it reads as "within walking distance far enough to make you sweat like a pig!"

2. Breathtaking view

- This means a good view of what your neighbours from across the building are doing. The HDB are so closely located to each other that you need not go to the movie to enjoy a good live 'drama'.

3. SGDxxxx/mth only

- This is just the rent. You have to pay extra close to SGD100/mth for parking, and some other charges which I am not familiar enough to write here. Oh yes, TV/radio license is SGD110/year!! And the moment you signed the tenancy agreement, please set a side a good SGD2K for all the deposit for gas, power, water, cable TV, internet, access cards, and what ever mak nenek that is required. The terms "nothing comes free" is under-rated here.

4. Fully furnished

- This simply means 'please be ready to accept the following:

1. a run down mismatched sofa (you'd be lucky to have PVC instead of a dust mite infected fabric sofa.'

2. some closets with missing drawers or doors

3. 80's themed bedroom sets

But hey...if it matches your taste, or you are not as fussy as this writer, what the heck!

Now that we have found our nest, time for furniture shopping (since it's an unfurnished unit). So far we have had 2 trips down to Ikea. It's a good I brought M'sia Ikea's catalogue, so that we can compare side by side its cost in RM vs. SGP.

ARGH!!! another headache!