thickbie

searching for the right home...part 1

For the past 3 weeks, we've been scouting for a house that will be our home starting from next year. Yes, that time has finally come ! Both me and HB are very very excited. Our search began with Clementi area first, this is because we wanted a place in the West side, but not too "ulu". We soon realise though, that the search is not easy because our criteria for a house is to be 4 room (i.e. 3 bedroom + living room), lift landing and near MRT. Since a lot of the Clementi houses are rather old or built in either late 70s or 80s, we cna hardly find one on the market which is on the lift level. There are newer flats in Clementi but the prices is sky high that it's beyond our budget :(

The first house viewing we did is at Clementi, block 356. It was a corner unit and lift landing ! It sounded to good to be true. Before we went up to the unit, the other agent told us "Please be prepared to see a house that is very basic". Well we thought we were prepared, but noo....the condition of the house is horrifying ! We got a trauma afterwards. Basically the house hasn't been renovated since the owner purchase it, which means around late 70s !! And that's not all, for that kind of place the owner daringly put a price tag of $260k !! We thought, if we can only get houses with that kind of condition with the budget that we have, then we should reconsider Clementi.

Then after we decided to look around our next preferred location Sengkang. Well, it was supposed to be Ang Mo Kio but then my agent told me that AMK is more ex, so what's the point huh? So on Sunday we went to Sengkang to see if we would like the area there. We took a train from Dhoby Gaut (approx 20 min) and then we just took the LRT to look around further. We quite like what we see and decided that we shall try to view some houses here.

The following week, after calling a couple of agents on houses that we are interested in, after work we viewed 3 houses on Saturday from 2 agents. They are all near to MRT, except for one at blk 226A. Mind you, we were really looking for a house which is walking distance from the MRT. We kinda like teh houses we saw but they were all on corridor (meaning all the windows of your living room is faicng corridor so when you open the window other ppl passing by can almost get the whole view of your house (lack of privacy).

Both agents asked if we want their help to source out more units and we thought why not. Less work for us. Subsequently we only went with one agent, since we like his honesty and non-pretentious attitude. The guy was kinda geeky as well and totally not the salesman type, which is a plus point for us ! Not really into salesman type. Anyways, before deciding I wanted to see some corner units. Our agent warn us that there are not many 4 room corner units in Sengkang, but I told him try and find out and let us know the following weekend.

TBC...

posted by thickbie @ 11:25 AM