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.