Are you also thinking of selling your HDB flat?

singcitizen — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 03:12:46 +0000

The property market here in Singapore is getting hot. In Hougang, where I live, I get flyers screaming ‘Hougang 3-room flat $200,000′ thrown at my doorstep every other day. In the lift the other day at Hougang Mall, two women were in animated conversation about their HDB flats. One was lamenting that she had sold her flat a year ago and could not cash in on the current good prices.

Just imagine, a year ago, a 3-room resale flat in Hougang fetched $145,000 and last month, a similar flat behind my block was sold at about $200,000. The market’s so good that everyone wants to jump in.

A brother-in-law of mine has been spending the evenings and weekends looking at 3-room flats near my block. He currently lives in a 4-room flat across the street and intends to downgrade to a 3-room flat. And he hasn’t even found a buyer for his 4-room flat yet! His wife has been talking about taking a holiday overseas with the proceeds from the sale of the flat.

In all the euphoria, perhaps, he might have forgotten that he just may not make any money from the downgrade. Granted the property market has shot up the last few months, but he is not selling his present flat and moving in with relatives so that he can pocket the money. Instead, he is buying another smaller resale flat. It is true that his 4-room flat has moved up in value, but so has the 3-room flat that he wants to buy.

The present flat was bought at a premium in the resale market. My brother-in-law did not buy it from HDB directly. So, in the end, after paying back the interests to his CPF account, is there any surplus left? He also has to do some renovations to make the new place comfortable for the family. Have both husband and wife factored these in their calculations before making the plunge?

Also, this chap took a subsidised HDB loan for the present 4-room flat. So, when he buys the resale 3-room flat, he has to take up a bank loan. In future, if he cannot cough up the monthly loan instalments, he could find himself in trouble — his 3-room flat could be repossessed. I wonder whether the couple have thought of all these nagging details.

I have another brother-in-law who had sold his 4-room flat in the vicinity some years back and bought a 3-room flat two blocks away from my block. The family made some money from the transaction, but that was because the flat they had sold was bought directly from the HDB many, many years ago. It has been three years since this brother-in-law moved into the 3-room flat. He is now a casual worker with no stable income. His wife is a housewife. The money from the proceeds of the sale is almost running out. Nowadays, the couple are worried that the money they have may not last till early next year. They are afraid the flat may be repossessed by the bank if they fail to meet the monthly instalment payments.

Why do we people think of short term benefits and neglect to look at the bigger picture? Here I have an older brother-in-law having bank mortgage loan problems weighing heavily on his mind. And there I have another one who could, some years ahead, be in similar dire straits. Mind you, both meet each other every single week without fail. Yet, this one living across the street doesn’t seem bothered by the other’s predicament as he goes on his flat-hunting rounds.

Are you also thinking of selling your HDB flat? With the current property craze getting into everyone’s head, some may have lost sight of reason and come scrambling aboard lest they get left behind.

Doing good deeds

singcitizen — Mon, 20 Dec 2004 02:24:36 +0000

A Sunday ago, my wife and I were having our breakfast in the kitchen of our 3-room HDB flat when we smelled burnt rubber in the air. I thought something might be wrong with some of our electrical connections and made a thorough check of the whole flat.

It turned out that the smell was coming from the flat directly below ours. From our master-bedroom window, we could see smoke spewing out of the flat’s common toilet windows.

I ran down to the flat and knocked on its door, but there was no answer initially. I had half a mind to call for the Fire Brigade and was already readying my mobile phone for the call when some sleepy voices rang out from the flat.

Soon, the door opened and a small boy came into view. Tailing him was an older girl. Both were woken out of their dreams, obviously. I could see the whole flat was smoky, with much of the smoke coming furiously from the kitchen – from a pot on a stove. I pointed out the smoke to these chaps and they screamed for their parents who were probably still sleeping.

Their sleepy mother came out into the hall with a toddler clung onto her hips. And their father followed behind. But, he was quick to move into the kitchen to take care of the stove. It could be he was working in the Civil Defence Force.

I asked the mother if everything was alright. It appeared they could handle the problem by themselves so I took leave and went back to my flat.

If I had gone down ten minutes later, it might have been too late. The whole family of five might have succumbed to the smoke, or worse, the stove might have exploded and fire might have consumed the whole flat. And the big wooden furniture items cluttering the corridor outside the entrance to their flat might have made escape more difficult.

My wife and I usually leave our flat by mid morning but that day, she had woken late and so we were having a late breakfast. Perhaps, it was fate that might have had a hand in making sure we were around to lend a helping hand to the family below our flat.

SingCitizen » HDB flats

Are you also thinking of selling your HDB flat?

Doing good deeds