KEK at Pandan Gardens

Pandan Gardens is becoming more happening. I just had my dinner at KEK @ #01-12, 200 Pandan Gardens. Very yummy and taste as good as its parent company at Bukit Merah. The setup is rather modern, with a few round tables and square ones. The room is air-conditioned, hence very cooling. However, the sound from the kitchen is rather loud so not so conducive to be sitting in there too long. The salted egg crabs and mustard orange prawn ball are a good combination. Salty and sweet.

Seafood horfun ($6)

Mustard Orange Prawn ball ($15)

Sambal Kangkong ($8)

Duck of the Day ($15)

Salted Egg Crab Steamed (based on weight, small crab about $45)

Steambuns ($1.2 each)

Just outside this restaurant, there was also an opening of an outdoor trekking shop. They were having a bbq get together today.

SG Property Cycle

I took a quick look at the Singstat which provides the Private Property Price Index over a 10 years period from 2003 to 2013. We could easily identify that the property was in the recovery phase from 2003-2006, boom phase from 2006-2007, with a slight slump in 2007-2008 and stabilised in 2008-2009. The market then began its next cycle of recovery from 2009. It was obvious that the industrial property was experiencing a rapid growth, unlike that of the residential which plateaued due to the government intervention.

There are several cooling measures that slowed down the property boom. This website has listed most of it. I have classified it into a few key areas which the government has been tweaking the system.

1. Additional Buyer Stamp Duty (ABSD) - increase hurdle for ROI
2. Seller's Stamp Duty (SSD) - reduce subsales
3. Loan to Value (LTV) limits - harder to borrow
4. Minimum Cash Down Payment - harder to buy
5. Total Debt Servicing Ratio (TDSR) - ensure financial prudence
6. Mortgage Servicing Ratio (MSR) - ensure financial prudence
7. PR / Foreigner restriction - restrict foreign investments
8. Minimum Occupation Period (MOP) rule - reduce multiple purchases

I think government intervention will have delayed repercussions from 2017 when the supply drops drastically.

RES class with my hunny

Today is the first day Sungsoo and I are taking classes together. There is only one training school in the west - Pioneer Training in Jurong East. I'm glad that it is just 5 minutes from home. After investing in Lakeville, we become more interested in the Singapore property market. Well, in some sense, we should learn more before we invest, but then again we learn faster and be a better advisor when we have first gone through the process of purchasing. I am looking forward to more lessons ahead :)

HDB BTO (Clementi Crest)

Clementi Crest HDB is really expensive. A 5 room flat (113sqm) is costing about $576K (2nd storey) to $725K (40th storey). Despite only 156 units of 5 room flat available, it was 10 times oversubscribed. My husband and I managed to get a queue number 198 but I doubt we are going to get a high floor unit which we always wanted.

My husband is finally a PR

My husband finally has gotten his PR. We applied in April 2014 after our ROM. And in Feb 2015, we finally gotten news. It took us about 10 months. Generally speaking, it is very fast already. There may be a couple of reasons that lead to that...

1) He is a Korean

2) He studied in Singapore before

3) We appealed through MP

4) I had a stable job to be a sponsor. 

5) He is a guy who has done NS

It was great that he has gotten his PR as he wasn't able to change his job despite hating it due to its really harsh long working hours. The Employment Pass (EP) he was holding on to was tied to the company and if he quit, he may have to leave Singapore if he couldn't find a job in time. 

Now that he has gotten his PR, he has quit his job and serving his 2 months notice period. We planned to go for a 1 month tour before starting my new job.