Sunday, July 09, 2006

Hunting for an Apartment in Singapore

Before we leave on the 3rd July, we had contacted a couple of real estate agent, completed with our budget range and what we are looking for in an apartment.

For instants we need an apartment which is fully furnished, 3 bedroom (for the upcoming baby and guests). Place near MRT and possibly not too far from where my husband's work. Although, we know that places around where he works will have a price way over our budget range.

On the day before our departure from Jakarta, i have arrange a viewing with 2 agents, one scheduled as soon as we arrived in Singapore (afternoon), the other is on the second day (4th July). But to our disappointment the first agent was taking us for granted, he thought that i only contact him for inquiries, and he ended up let us down by saying he didn't have any suitable place within our price ranges. What a B*tch he was.

So on our first day, my husband look upset about the agent, and so did i.

The next day, the other agent called and told us that we will viewed 4 places, and will start the viewing from 2:30 to 4:30.

My husband had to canceled his appointment with ISS Consulting, and had re-scheduled it to the next day.

The first place was in Aljunied MRT, it's an apartment with no facilities, 3 bedrooms, fully furnished, kinda old, and when we viewed it, the owner still have a lot of stuff lying around, which make the place look small and not neat at all.
I knew that this is going to be the last choice if we have to choose a place today.
Although, the price was ok, it was 1500.

The second one was quiet a nice place in Paya Lebar, huge place with full facilities, it is a condo apartment. But the price was wayyy wayy over our budget. It was 2500, and its not fully furnished. MRT station was located 5 minutes from the place. I don't think we should even consider this place even the owner said the price still negotiable.

The 3rd place was in Eunos, one stop after paya lebar, this one is a brand new apartment, with a small pool and a jacuzi. As soon as we entered the place, we both was stuned by how bright the place was, a lot of sun came in the place, the kitchen equiped with gas stove, all rooms was in parquite, and the place was never tenanted before. We discussed in the kitchen and decided that we going to rent it, with one condition, they will provide washing machine and a fridge. The lady who is the agent of the place told us that the owner will provide the washing machine and the fridge but not the whole furniture. So, we asked our agent a favour as to show us where can we rent some furniture. She told us that we can even go looking for furniture afterwards.

After signing for a letter of consent, and put down some deposit money, we went to furniture place to look for furnitures. The first place was Nova, after looking around, the total amount that we need to spend in order to buy all those will be around 3000. I don't think i want to spend that much of money to buy all things that we only use it for 2 years. So i told our agent to take us to the rented one, she made a call, and we drove to the other furniture place. This place was ok, all their furniture are on sale and compare to the first one, their price was lower than Nova. We took a the codes of all things we want to rent including their prices. After calculating the price and spoke to the person who incharge of rental. He offer us 210 dollar/month with the deposit of one month rent and one month in advance.

After settle everything in one day, we had so much relief and rest in our hotel room for a couple of hours.

We went to have dinner at Food Republic and spent a couple of hours walking around the plaza. When we arrived back at the hotel, i have the urged to calculated the total amount that we need to spend per month and compared them with the amount we spent in one go if we decided to buy all those stuff. If we rent the furniture for $210 per month, we will end up paying 4000 plus, while we only pay around 2000 plus for all the stuff. Thinking of it, we will gain more if we buy all the stuff than rent them. So I sms my agent again and told her to hold the process of renting, because we will go to the furniture place again and will asked for the the final price.

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