the search so far

The weekends, and even some weekday nights have been spent searching for that perfect location now, and it has been an interesting experience so far. In almost every instance, the viewing of each flat involves invading into the seller's privacy. It's somewhat surreal, especially when the agent happily brings you around, then whispers quite loudly that 'owner's son/daughter sleeping, so can see this room but must be quiet hor'. Of course, not forgetting the time when we walked into the study to find a shirt-less middle aged man perched coolie style on a chair in his study. Oops.

Some useful tips to share though:
1) I've done up an excel sheet (which I recommend for forgetful people like me) of the units that I've visited. Keeps things in perspective, reminds me of which units I've already seen & also helps as a gauge on what the average COV is around the areas I'm looking for.


2) Another useful thing to do is to go through a street directory & mark out the specific estates & block numbers of the flats you don't mind looking at. Keep it with you at all times so that when an agent calls you with a potential viewing, you will be able to easily know whether or not the block fits into your criterion & whether or not to pass on the viewing.

3) My last tip would be to pencil out your budget with various loan amounts and bring that along when you're viewing flats. You can do this budgeting via HDB's financial plan site. Look at my 'affordability post' for more info on this.

Our budget write up takes only about 10-15 mins to fill, depending on how many 'scenerios' you want to consider, but it really helped us know right off whether a unit was good to consider. Looks like this.