Tactics of Housing Agents

Today, I met up an agent to do a rough viewing of the house. She was speaking about how other agents steal her clients, bad-mouthing them until goodness knows when.

However, when she knew that my mom liked another house, she asked for the unit, looked through her notebook to discover who the agent is, then told me, "I can let you see the house. You know ah, you're my client. You cannot go through the original agent ok?" Diaoz....

Her promises to my mother on the unit were that "it is fully furnished! Just renovated 2 years ago. Wonderful view."

And all that we see are the condo facilities (which in truth has a view that is really not bad, just that higher floors are probably needed so that the reservoir can be seen) and a house that is repainted and its kitchen cabinet changed (objectively, this does represent the bulk of the costs.) However, in my mind, this is only 1/2 renovated (and I'd have to remove everything anyway), yet it is 1.13 times more expensive per sq foot than a bigger unit. Definitely not a good buy.

What are wealthcomes lessons to be learned here:

1. Be price sensitive. If you are willing to pay more than the usual price, be really sure about the reasons why you would pay a higher sum.
2. Have good standards. The housing agent in trying to foist things off us said "Look, the bathroom is renovated." but it has the same design of furnishings as my mom's house - they're original condition stuff, not renovated stuff.
3. And if possible, be sceptical about what agents say. If possible, check their information sources against a few other information sources, do your own independent information search to compare what they are saying with what's happening on the market.
4. She was quite pushy about selling the more expensive unit to me. Probably because she is the sole agent and thus able to gain higher commissions from that sale? Have a criteria and stick to it. And be analytical, systematic and objective in the comparison of houses

SIBOR linked mortgages

http://www.luxurysingaporehomes.com/blog/?p=22

Questions to ask when taking a mortgage

You would definitely need to know how much loan you can get(70 or 80% of price of the property), how long is the lock-in period, loan repayment is accepted without penalty. others small details like whether legal fees, fire insurance are subsidised.

One analysis of Maybank's Newest Housing Loan

http://www.sgclub.com/singapore/home_loan_review_138880.html

Interesting articles on reducing mortgage payments and mortgages as a whole

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2008/02/12/mortgage-prepayment-made-easy-own-your-home-in-half-the-time/

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/realestate/19mort.html

Common Questions to ask agents

1. How big is it?
2. How much is it? (take note of both psf and absolute price)
3. On what floor is it?
4. How much is its maintenance fees?
5. Any new developments?

Also, when viewing the unit, take note of other characteristics (facing of each room, quality of furnishings, views etc) Bring a compass if you can.

To ensure you are getting the market price, check out the URA website so that you wouldn't be overpaying for the unit

Looking for a place of residence

Because my SO and I could not qualify for subsidised housing, we had continually being toying with 2 options. One to have one of us stop working for a while so that we can apply for public housing (this will open the possibility of myself not working should we have a child), two is to just concentrate on private housing or resale flats. Even till now, we are still open to both options, but given that the price of private property is on par with public housing, we decided to go along with option 2 unless circumstances change.

As of now, we are wide open on our choices of the location to live in because the significant places we go to (our parents, our work places, our leisure places) are so far from each other. So far, this is our set of criterias that we are looking at:

- Near to MRT (but not noisy)
- Mid floors
- Set budget (will be revealed once we have decided and bought our place)
- Either a unit with super old furnishings at a cheap price, or a well-furnished unit where we do not have to spend time and money on renovations
- Near either my parents, his parents or his workplace
- No west sun
- Regularly shaped rooms

From the start of this year until now, this is a summary of the places we have visited:
District 8: 5 units
District 12: 2 units
District 20: 1 unit
District 28: 2 units
District 11: 2 units
District 22: 3 units

We are also considering a couple of units in district 1.

Till date, 3 units have caught my eye. However, given that my SO is currently not in Singapore *sob sob*, I would not be able to discuss my choices until I've talked with him. Hopefully our desired housing of choice would still be available *Pray pray*