Tips on buying a flat

1. Get armed -- read up on the facts. Go online to HDB website & study the market statistics and find out the median resale prices and cash-over-value for flats in your targeted area. Visit the location at different times of the day to get a feel of what it's like to live there.

2. Set the rules of the game -- decide if you want to hire a housing agent to help you. If you're doing it yourself, check out the HDB website to find out the procedures involved or attend its monthly resale seminar. Most agents representing sellers charge buyers the 1% fee if they're not represented by another broker. Some agents turn down requests from independent buyers to view the flats. Whatever you decide, it's best to make it clear upfront by stating clearly when first contact with the brokers marketing the flats.

3. Act the Sherlock -- living in high-rise, densely packed public apartments has its own quirks. You never know, for example, if an owner is selling the flat because he has been harassed for repayment by loansharks at his home. If you buy this flat, you may end up being harassed yourself even if you had nothing to do with the debt. Take a walk down the staircase closest to that flat and pay attention to the flat door. If graffiti is found or the door is damaged, it could indicate that the flat is being targeted.

Another problem, more common in older resale flats, is leaky ceilings. This happens when shoddy renovation upstairs or age creates kinks in the water-proofing layer in your ceiling. To spare yourself the hassle of living with this or trying to fix the leak, look out for watermarks on the ceiling when viewing flats.

4. Be shameless -- don't give up if one agent turns down the price you offer for a flat. You may get lucky with another agent marketing the same flat. Some flat owners do not give exclusive marketing rights to one agent, prefer to pay a commission to whoever gets them a deal. Agents are unlikely to disclose that they are marketing a flat which they have no exclusive rights over. If agent A thinks that your offer is too low, agent B might find it a worthy offer to discuss with the owner.

5. Keep your cool -- it is common for agents to arrange viewings for an many as 10 interested parties within a half-hour slot, to heighten the sense of competition among buyers. Some agents will tell you they already have offers for the flat - when they don't - just to get you interested. If an agent tells you that someone has already offered $480K for a flat, make him an offer of, say, $460K on the spot. If he tries to negotiate with you, that $480K offer is most likely a fake.

6. Watch out for upgrades -- if a flat you are interested in is being upgraded, find out who is paying for the work. HDB fills owners for upgrading after the work is done, and the owner at the point of billing is responsible for payment. Ask for a receipt to show that he has paid the upgrading bill or check with the relevant HDB office if the seller wants to factor the upgrading cost in the price.

7. Take your time -- buyers & sellers of HDB flats must use the standard HDB Option to Purchase form. Under this arrangement, the buyer gets 14 days to consider his purchase after paying a non-refundable option fee. Don't rush to sign the option on the spot.

8. Don't' even think about it! -- don't go under the table practice, either cashback (artificially inflate the purchase price to get a bigger housing loan) or cash-down (underdeclare the full purchase price). Avoid getting entangled in such illegal arrangement; you may be fined up to %5,000 and jailed up to 6 months for giving such false information.

9. Be a busybody -- don't' be afraid to ask all the questions you have.

The Parc condo

The Parc condo in West Coast Walk got exceptional good response and was snapped up in less than a fortnight early this month. The 659-unit FH project consists of seven 24-storey buildings and were sold at $880 psf on average, rising from about $820 initially. There are a lot of complaints and public anger for its selling out without proper public launch (heard that 70% are sold to its employees & business associates -- not sure how true it is though). I hate to admit that CES and its marketing agent (Savills) have done a great job in selling such a project at record-high price in the area, though I think they're unethical in their encouraging flippers that the developer offered the most favorable deferred payment scheme to-date (only 10% net before TOP) and agents informally guarantee for ready buyers to take over their loads.

Well, with the current uncertainty of the US subprime impacting financial markets, these flippers take very high risks this time and are real fools in my opinion. The Parc is sandwiched between express way and HDB buildings around it. Though a little closer to town area and facilities (by at most 1km), it is priced $100 to $200 psf higher than the nearly condos which are quieter and of significantly lower density. Let's see, I bet the flippers will get burnt soon.

Buying resale HDB flat

Nowadays buyer of HDB resale flat must engage own solicitor probably due to the commercial bank loan. One may need to fork out some $2K, for example $1870 at Sim Mong Teck & Partners at HDB hub, for the legal fees:

** Solicitor's charge $850
** CPF cost $118
** Lodgment fees on caveat, transfer & mortgage $140
** Stamp fees on mortgage & transfer $510
** Disbursement - various searches $100
** Disbursement - transport, photocopy & incidentals $80
** GST $80

HDB market is on the upswing and its prices shot up 3% in the 2nd quarter, the biggest jump since 1999. 8700 transactions are reported in the quarter, or 38% up on the previous quarter. As the 'soft intervention' to the crazy market since this year, URA & HDB started to release more & new type of statistic data to provide true, sufficient and timely information (see at hdb.gov.sg).

Together with SLA's releasing more lands for developing new office & residential properties, HDB also announced its plan to offer 3000 new flats in the second half of this year.

Tanglin Village

We went down to Tanglin Village yesterday. It's a new place introduced on newspapers, at Dempsey Rd (turn in from Holland Rd west-wards) near botanic garden. Besides the old antique furniture stores, there are now quite a few bars & restaurants, art and spa houses newly set up, some are still renovating and yet to open. It will become a good leisure place especially for the nearby westerners.

Jacky's concert

'The Year of Jacky Cheung World Tour 2007' concert was held at the Indoor Stadium last night. It's the 3rd day of his Singapore show. Jacky brought in 30min. musical (abstracted from his '雪狼湖'?) which is pretty good and a surprise to me.

Unfortunately our seats are too close to the subwoofer so I can't really enjoy most of the loud songs -- that's a lession I've learnt :(

7.9% Sharp Increase

Based on Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA)'s estimated price index of private residential property, prices rose 7.9% to 147.3 points in the 2nd Quarter 2007, compared with the 4.8% increase in the previous quarter (increased by 7.6% in Core Central Region, 7.9% in Rest of Central Region and 6.5% in Outside Central Region).

A lot of speculating activities are encouraged by the recent record high & hottest deals (such as The MarQ at $5100psf or the 3am queuing for Duchess Residences). Some people bought in early this year are excited talking about the >40% (on paper) gains...

If it continues to be crazy like this, I think it will repeat the 1996 - 1997 story again when anti-speculation & cool-down measures were applied and then the market over-corrected itself in the several years after. A progressive & sustainable increase is far better than this sharp uptrend. But the speculators deserve getting burnt.

3G SIM

Finally I decided to upgrade my GSM phase 2+ SIM to a 3G card. I've been reluctant to do so as the old SIM was actually coded by myself when I was with a SIM card vendor. It was the first STK offer in Singapore, with Info-On-Demand SIM application on it. This fact has kept me loyal to that telco and to the particular SIM card for the past 8 yrs as I'm able to load additional STK applications therefore turn it into a live test card.

Now with 3G or even 3.5G network having phrased in and offering much faster data rate & more features, I can't hold on any more but to upgrade (I now have to pay for it!) & switch to the 3G network. Moreover, SIM application has become the past story though most handsets still (quietly) support STK. The VAS platform has changed from SIM card to Java application and now to the smartphone OS e.g. Windows Mobile or Symbian. WAP did not even get a chance to really fly. The role of SIM card has been demoted to its original function, i.e. subscriber identification and storing network parameters; it is no longer the key player in VAS development, nor is SIM vendor.

Actually, many of the original SIM functions become insignificant in today's mobile experience. For example, the SIM phone book is seldom used and SMS is not even stored into SIM any more. My new 3G SIM (btw, I can recognize it as Gemalto card by its contact-pad shape :-) is said to be 128K card with the capacity to store 1000 phonebook entries. But who really cares it? The phone usually provides megabytes (if not gigabytes) of dynamic memory that effectively stores unlimited number of contact & SMS records. It also offers a more sophisticated phonebook with, for example, voice tag, customised ring tone, face image, email & address that the SIM phonebook doesn't.

The world changes fast. The eight years are long due to flash the concept about GSM VAS...