The rumours about 55 and above.

Recently on Facebook, this was being shared and of course, Mama shared with me

Baba is 64 this year and hardly falls sick, which only means he should have quite a fair bit in his Medisave. So Mama thought I should check this out because they could use the extra money since they going Jogja in September.

Turns out this shit is legit okay.

Yes, my dad has successfully withdraw from his Medisave. So how can you check?

First, your parents must have their singpass. If they have never activated or forgot their password, they can get one/reset at any of the CCs HERE!

Step 1: Log into CPF to check their Medisave account. You can see if your parents have the balance of $43,500 and above or not.

Step 2: On the left hand side bar, click on 'My Requests' to bring you to this page

Step 3: Click on the little computer beside 'Retirement (eg, Retirement Sum & Age 55 applications)' to bring you to this page

Step 4: Click 'Withdraw my CPF at age 55' and it will be bring you to this page which explains to you what the little rumour is explaining:

So this thing can be done by 31st December 2015. So as long as your parents is 55 or turning 55 in TWO months time, they can apply. If not, they will not be able with withdraw.

Step 5: Click 'Continue' to bring you to your request page:

Step 6: Fill in your parent's IC number, click on 'full amount of about $xxx that I am eligible to withdraw', click on 'I do not wish to top-up my MA using my OA and SA savings' then at the bottom of the page, fill in the bank details of where the $$$ to be transferred.

Don't fill in your bank account ah! Haha, although I disturb Baba that I charge admin fees. Hehehe. The whole process will take 5 working days for them to review and approve. Currently, it is approved but money is not in yet. So you have a rough idea of the timeline.

You're welcome.

I shall continue my 3rd Trimester blog entry.

The finer details of resale houses and pls shut up.

Disclaimer: Best read on desktop than mobile. House agents probably will hate me after this since they are charging buyers 1% to do all these things. Which I think is okay if you have extra money to throw and you are lazy to do search for your house. But yes, 1% is a A LOT because if the house costs 350k, then the commission you are paying them is SGD3,500+. And that is a lot of money, no? Oh wells. And this is lengthy so you may skip to the end because I have something at the end.

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FOR BUDGETING PURPOSES
So before buying a resale/BTO, it is always best to check your finances and set a budget on how much you both can afford without paying cash to HDB when collecting your keys. Firstly, check your Housing Loan Eligibility or better know as HLE. Don't worry, you can check a "rough estimation" without having to apply an actual one with HDB. But it is always better to apply for HLE to get the exact amount that both of you are eligible for which some may find it tedious because you need to download 1 year's worth pay slips for the 1st owner and last 3 month's worth of pay slips for second owner to submit. So whichever okay?

For Baobei and I, when we went for our haus hunting in November 2014, we did not apply for HLE at first but we did a "rough calculation" on HDB website (google: HLE calculator). It looks something like this:

For us, Baobei is the first owner and I am the second owner.

So fill this up and it will look something like this:

It is pretty simple. They just need these information which I have just put in so I can generate the HLE for you guys to see. They don't include OT (over time), so don't include them in or else when you do the actual application, it will not be the same amount as when you're calculating currently.

Then when you generate, this will pop up. This is called your HLE. 

What is HLE?

Basically to explain in layman terms, it is how much HDB can loan you based on your income and how much CPF is being contributed monthly. From those given information, they will roughly know how much to loan you. So if you don't earn a lot, it makes sense that they can't loan you a lot too because then you will have a hard time paying you back. For an example, you wouldn't lend someone $100 if she is earning 50 cents an hour right? Not the best example, but I am just showing that it is common sense. So based on the example above, they will deduct a total of $1,800 from both your ORDINARY ACCOUNT(OA). Please remember that when your pay is deducted for CPF, most of the money goes to Ordinary Account but some goes to your Medisave etc. And usually if you borrow the maximum amount of HLE, you may have to top up cash monthly because your monthly contribution to your OA will not be enough. Which is what is happening to Baobei and I. However, HDB does not wipe off your entire OA when you collect your keys which people keep saying they do. In fact these people don't check their CPF statements and realize that HDB leaves about 1-2k balance in their OA. However with bonuses etc, we are not required to top up the cash monthly and still have a balance in our OA up til today. Syukur Alhamdulilah.

But if you want to apply for an actual HLE, you can do so. And you don't have to necessary buy a house once you apply for one, so don't worry okay of the implications of applying just to see the actual amount. It's validity is for 6 months. However, you will need to reapply for another HLE if let's say one of you got a pay raise (not necessary unless you wish to get a bigger amount of loan) or when one of you change your job (different pay slips etc). You can apply by logging in (myhdb) via one of your singpass:

On the sidebar, you can see the HLE link for your to apply. As you can tell, we both applied in December when we were looking at that particular house in Serangoon :D And when we actually had the intention of buying the house, we actually called up the Customer Relations Manager in charge of our case, to fasten the process. She was nice to push our application forward and we got it less than a week.

So what's next after your HLE? To know your budget, you need to check what is amount in your OA when you log into your CPF page here. I don't have an example because this one is not calculator like HLE. Personal ah.

Next, check your eligibility for housing grant.

For TeamBTO, you get to check if you're eligible for Additional Housing Grant/Special Housing Grant. Fill up the questionnaire to check but here's a rough guideline:

For resale people, the only grant you get is if both are first-timers which is $30,000 but if you are buying a resale house near either of your parents, provided none of your siblings or your partner's siblings have not used this, you get an additional $10,000 grant which totals to $40,000. However, staying near parents in HDB terms is within 1km radius. So for us, Serangoon and Bishan is more than 1km so we are only eligible for 30k grant. If only one of you is a first timer, then partial grant is given. But if I am not mistaken, you can also apply for AHG if your combined income does not exceed $5,000. I am not sure about this so just double check with the case manager.

So what is the final budget that you can afford:

HLE + Combined CPF in your OA + AHG/SHG/resale 1st timer grant = Amount you can afford.

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FOR RESALE ONLY

Here's a zoom on resale because it is a little more complicated. If you're interested in resale houses and want to know your actual budget, you will realize how much of a best friend this page is to you:

This is for those who want to compute for BTO. For resale, it is called Resale Financial Plan.

So if you have not obtained your HLE, you can use the rough estimation that you have calculated. It is better to have applied for one because for Baobei and I, it was higher by 20k than when we did a calculation which gave us more budget. Anyway, without HLE it will look something like this:

This is based on the HLE example I did above.

Okay, I forgot to mention that when you are doing this you should have houses that you are currently eyeing on. My fabbret website to search for resale houses is Property Guru. And if you're interested in buying a 4 room resale which is at least 103-105sqm like ours, it is called 4A. You can refine your search by doing this:

STEPS
1) The price the seller is offering, you put inside "Purchase Price of Resale Flat".
2) For valuation, you can put in any value if you are just checking as this does not affect the outcome. It just for HDB to note how much is your flat valued at as they will calculate based on the condition of the house, the location and what amenities you can find around the house. During my parents' time of buying resale houses, valuation is done before selling so seller knows the value of the house and people use that as a marking to set the price. But now, the tables have turned. Valuation is only done after the signing of the first set of papers when both have agreed on the price. So it is really luck if you get to buy a house below the valuation like we did.

IMPORTANT:

The red box is what you need to take note of. This is something all buyers have to pay to HDB. When we compute our Resale Finances Plan, we set aside this as part of our budget because if you don't include it, high chance this is the amount that you will need to top up that amount when collecting keys.

The blue indicates how much you need to pay HDB upon key collection. Meaning to say, after totaling up your HLE, combined CPF and grants, it is still not enough to cover the cost of the house you're buying plus the component in the red box. If you don't pay the one circled in blue upon key collection (second appointment), you will not get your keys.

The green indicates how much monthly you have to top up cash. This happens when both your OA does not cover the monthly repayment needed to make for your HLE.

So what is the actual budget for resale:

HLE + Combined CPF in OA for both + grant (30k/40k) + 10k (the red box) = Your budget

If you choose to purchase a flat above your budget, then you will see it reflected in the blue circle. This is okay for some because they have saved money prior to this. HDB has no issues if you're buying something above your budget just as long as you make the payment when collecting your keys.

What is the timeline/needed for resale?

1) When both seller and buyer have agreed on the price, the seller's agent will pass you a bunch of documents to sign which the agent will ask you to take photos of the pages you will need to submit to HDB online when applying for valuation. Also, seller will ask for a deposit to secure the unit. Deposit range from $1-1,000. For us, we deposited $1,000. Once you have signed and deposit, the paper work will be valid for 21 days. Meaning during this 21 days of the signing of the first batch of papers, seller is not allowed to let anyone view the house while you do your paperwork as a buyer. If seller backs out, you can take your deposit back. If the buyer backs out, your deposit will be forfeited. 

2) After signing the first set of papers and taking the photos of the signed documents, you will have to log into the HDB website (myhdb) via either of your singpass to request for valuation to be done at the flat you are purchasing.

You need to pay an amount, I think slightly more than $100 for the valuation report to be done depending if you're buying 2/3/4/5 room flat. Put the seller's agent as the person to contact because the person who is doing the valuation needs to liaise with the agent for someone to be home for the valuation to be done. Just ask the seller's agent to keep you in the loop. This is done within the next few days and the valuation report will be updated on myhdb webpage when you log into either of your account via singpass within a week.

IMPORTANT: The seller is not allowed to increase the price of the house if the valuation is higher than the agreed price. If both are still agreeable, then the seller's agent will meet up with you to sign the second set of papers and will request for the second deposit. Your first and second deposit cannot exceed $5,000. This has to be declared on the papers when you both sign. So if your first deposit if $1,000, your seller can ask $4,000 as the second deposit. However, remember this will offset what you have to pay later on (refer above where you have the deposit column to declare). An example if the house is sold at $350,000 and you have already deposited $5,000 then they will calculate the rest based on your balance which is $345,000. Once this is done and submitted to HDB, both of you can log in to choose a date and time for the first appointment. Note that first appointments are Monday to Fridays and morning slots only. If anyone backs out at this stage, you can actually sue the other party.

For us, all the paper work were completed in February and our first appointment was only on the 27th of March. That was a 4 week gap.

What happens during the first appointment?

A lot of signing of papers for the buyers. Also, your case manager will ensure that you are applying for a house you can afford so basically checking your finances. If you need to pay cash if you happen to buy a flat that is outside your budget, then he/she will inform you of what you need to pay on second appointment. You will also need to bring documents like CPF letters/pay slips, marriage cert, IC which they will let you know via letter. After this is completed, both you and the seller's agent will decide on the second appointment date where is the handover of keys. The fastest is 4 weeks and the longest you can stretch is 8 weeks. For us, we took the 8 weeks because no rush for us and the seller's daughter wanted to celebrate her birthday there for the last time.

What happens during the second appointment?

Not much signing of papers. You will hear "Congratulations on your flat," at the end of it. You will also have to pay property tax to the seller's representative which is usually a lawyer that costs less than $100. You will also need to apply for house insurance which is less than $100 if you want the minimum coverage. What we did is to cancel to PUB bill of our house and ensure no outstanding payments due. We also set an account for our house to ensure electricity and water are running at our house. This switch will take about 5 working days. And yes, you will get your keys.

So yes, buying a resale house can be tedious in terms of looking for potential houses and setting up appointments. At the same time, the amount of paper work you have to do on our own can be taxing. But we saved ourselves more than $4,000 just doing this. And you know what's funny? The seller's agent made us think that we were not capable of doing this because he kept saying, "You sure you know how to do? Cannot do wrongly you know. You want my agent friend to represent you?" Please brotha. Only once when we were not sure how to submit that we went down to HDB itself and the person at the customer service booth helped us. So make full use of all these options instead of paying people to do it. If not, you email me lah. I can do it for $500. Hahah. Put it in my BabyRKM fund.

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Just to clarify one thing: Your BTO is not the only BTO that is 92sqm.

And I have something for human beings out there that are sensitive nak mampos

(image from Google)

Instructions to use product above: Put all over your face. Let it soak in your skin and hopefully brains. With a ray of hope that uolls understand that as you grow older, the overly sensitip has got to go as well.

But what does it tell if you hate me so much but you read into everything I post/say/do? Heh. Know that I will never apologise for having a backbone.

Why my resale kicks BTO's ass.

DISCLAIMER: This entry is only appealing to you if you're sitting on a fence, deciding if you should get a resale or BTO. It is not very pedas because my pregnancy hormones are raging at different things and just wish everyone's houses are just equally big. Other than that, this may be irrelevant/boring. But you can plan for your future too even if you don't have a significant other. No judging.

I have been on TeamBTO for awhile because for one, I thought that never in a million years would I be able to afford a resale house. Why? Because resale houses depend solely on market prices/owner's choice of price and then there was an era of COV (Cash Over Valuation). That is basically paying the seller a certain amount he/she wishes to get cash value out of their flat. However, with the market for resale houses doing poorly and still is, plus COV is long gone that makes resale an alternative option. HDB is now firm with the COV whereby they scrap the entire idea or most part of it, and call it a "deposit" where it is capped at $5,000 (will elaborate on the next entry).

So why the sudden change from BTO to resale? Especially when I have said from the start that Baobei and I have no rush since we both have rooms at our parents' place, although we will be residing more in Serangoon than Jurong.

1) Resale market is doing poorly.

This only means good news for buyers and not so good news for sellers, especially those whose location is not very appealing. Those "hot spots" can still pull in quite a price though. And yes, although BTO will be a wayyy cheaper option for a married couple who are both only 25 years old, let's think far and not be narrow-minded.

This was taken from Channel News Asia Singapore's FB page.

We are truly blessed for two reasons. We got our unit in Bishan at a great deal and Bishan still shows great potential if we decide to sell in the future.

2) House size.

I cannot emphasize greatly how important this is in a long run, especially for couples who plan to start/have/will want a family. Maybe you don't plan to have kids now or maybe young kids do not need a lot of space but things will be different in 10 years time. I guarantee it. If you have not read my logic behind this, I have blogged before HERE. So for us, we will take a 4A room flat over a 5 room BTO because I have lived to see BTO in 3 room, 4 room and 5 room. Let me tell you that the difference between 4 and 5 room is only the size of the living room. Because if you were to buy a 5 room BTO, you can choose to build in your "4th" room in the living room as a study room etc. But the kitchen, toilets and rooms are still tiny-sized. Don't get me started on the most important room; Master bedroom. I mean, I paid for the damn house, the least I could get is a huge room for myself. I don't really care if the living room is tiny because let's face it, I bought a house to house myself, not my guests. So if they think the living room is too tiny for them when they visit, then please don't come!

3) Facilities.

When we started looking at resale houses, we also looked at what the neighbourhood has to offer. This is very important because even kedai mama under the block makes a huge difference! Unlike BTO which is typically build on empty lands next to more empty lands which most empty lands in Singapore are suited in the ulu areas of the neighbourhood. Which means we don't know what kind of shops/schools/doctors/ etc are being offered at that point of time apart from the fine print which HDB promises. But for us, when we were haus hunting our Bishan kastle, the neighbourhood is already there. Which means we just have to take a look at what they have. We are lucky as there are THREE childcare centers that were walking distance from our block, a wet market, NTUC (24 hours), my family doctor (hahaha Mama says it is easier for me to take MC), pediatrician clinic (a bonus that we now have BabyRKM coming soon), Prima Deli (Baobei's highlight!) and many more things like Bishan's version of Rupini's too (threading and waxing). So when it comes to facilities, we get to decide if the price tag is worth paying for because they have already existed. I read up a year ago on Facebook about one of the BTO in Punggol was promised a childcare center under their BTO block but it was not build or still being promised that send people on a search for a the nearest childcare. No such nonsense for resale houses.

4) Location.

Again, we get to pick the location. Not location like Bishan or Ang Mo Kio or Yishun. But more of where our house is located at exactly. Is it near the bus stop? Walking distance to the MRT? For my unit, we are located in such a manner that it is 3 bus stops to Bishan MRT, 4 bus stops to Thomson and their good food (Marymount MRT) and about 6 bus stops to Ang Mo Kio MRT. So yay us! There are two different bus stops on two separate main roads connecting to our house, and it is just beside the multi-story carpark for people like us who go out exactly on time and cannot afford extra time to walk. Like I said previously, location plays a part especially if we rely highly on public transport. Although we have the family car for now, I don't see us having one once BabyRKM is older or once our baby-making factory is close. A second hand car for now, is worth paying for the convenience when I am pregnant and when BabyRKM arrives. But if not, it will be motorbikes for the parents and public with the baby. However I do note that some BTOs are located very near MRTs and are at prime locations/matured estates, but of course the price tag is a tad ridiculous. My cousin paid for a 4 room BTO at Boon Keng that cost him half a million. Mine only costs half a million after it is fully paid for!!! So for me, the size and the price tag just doesn't match. Very bullshit eh.

5) Cost of renovation.

People say the downside of resale is the renovation costs because hacking is a lot of $$$ as compared to building things on an entirely empty house. That is true. But it is also true that hacking is not as expensive as you think it is (get many quotations from contractors as possible). Some resale houses are already renovated nicely by the owners so that makes it a plus point! Just wash the whole house before moving in. For us, we came in with the mindset of redoing the whole house. We had that huge plan which of course we tucked it aside once we found about about BabyRKM. But we are very lucky that the house's condition is still good. The floor tiles are still nice. I can say that is even nicer and of better quality than what HDB is offering as part of the BTO package. The toilets for our house were newly renovated (less than 7 months) which means we just have to change the toilet seats. The only thing we had to do was kitchen cabinet although the flooring was chipped here and there but hey! It is okay for now. We can still make do. Oh, don't get it wrong. Some resale houses come in the worst condition but sellers are usually willing to let go at a dirt cheap price so you can use the money on renovation. The key is to point out with whatever that is terrible about the house structure. Say things like, "But you see the tiles here are coming off.," or "If I buy this hosue, then I have to renovated the whole flooring," which will most likely tilt the price to your favour. Anyway our whole kitchen cost us SGD9.3k which includes hacking, cooker hod etc and build in microwave, which will be a separate entry once the kitchen renovation is done and the painting is completed. Then you will understand why I love my house and it's amazing layout.

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The only TWO good things I can gather from buying BTO are:

1) You are the first owner.

There shouldn't be any worry of the past history of the house which usually sellers/agents will not inform you of. So this house is a clean slate and you create the first memory of this BTO.

2) Most who apply are young couples/families.

Which means to say you will get neighbours of your age which I think makes it pretty cool. Lucky us, my next door neighbour is a pretty young (late 20s, early 30s) couple with young kids (below 5) so it doesn't seem so bad. But apart from that, my other neighbours or people living in the flat itself are not very young anymore. Hahah so BabyRKM will have to make do with my friends' kids aje lah.

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There will be people who disagree with me or say I show-off because I bought a resale house, but trust me when I said some people don't realize that they can actually afford to buy a resale themselves. It is a lot of homework but if you want it, work it! Some will even say, "Smaller house, lesser to clean/maintain," but like I said to each of his/her own. Thinking ahead never kills especially when you have no idea how much houses will cost in the future. If it is cheaper than what I bought it for now then Alhamdulilah, lucky you. But if HDB makes things more complicated in the future or younger generation wants a bigger house, it can make selling your current 92sqm a difficult thing to do. For me, the only upgrade I want from my current house will either be mansionette or private house. But if not, this house will be with us for a long, long time. If we get bored of the house, renovate lor. Like what we plan in 5 years to come, In Shaa Allah!

Of course for most, BTO seems like the pocket friendly option for those who do not have the luxury to buy resale houses. But then again, you might just be lucky like us who managed to find something that fits the bill, within our budget. So do lots of homework before buying a BTO, especially with more and more complains of the quality HDB is producing at. Some cost cutting may cost you more in a long run (like taking a package with the flooring and toilet doors, and ending up changing/replacing because the quality suck balls and it does).

Oh, for those who are engaged and plan to buy resale, note that you need to produce your marriage cert within a month of key collection and not 6 months like BTO. There are some exceptions but you just need to double check with your HDB case manager. You will be surprised how fast it is to buy a resale flat. So if your wedding is less than 6 months, you can start resale haus hunting. But if not, wait okay. Unless you are willing to nikah (solemnize) earlier.

My next entry is how to know how much you can afford to pay for a house meaning your budget (for both BTO and resale) and the process of DIY-ing your own side of the paperwork without having to get an agent to do it (for resale only).

Yes, I miss baby updates too. But the next one will be fun as we hit third trimester this week (or have we already entered?)! Please keep us in your prayers as we have reached the final lap of our pregnancy journey. Alhamdulilah. Oh, I have created a page about BabyRKM's journey/updates which you can find on the left side under #kattkrownjr

Oh I also do plan to do an entry related to weddings but more to Malay weddings specifically. It is about how much is too little to give the bride&groom as duit salam and why do we give.

Til the next one, xo 

The kirekattkastle or normal people say house.

So before we got married, we had a rule:
Buy a house only after we get married.

That's because Mak has already warned me beforehand to not be gatal (itchy backside) and apply for a house with someone who is not my husband. We initially set our mind on a project that HDB, well up til now, has yet to launch. If you have not guessed where's the location of the project we had been eyeing for, it is Bidadari. It will be launched in September 2015. If you're interested, you can look more in it here.

So anyway, after we got married I started exploring our options to buy a house. I mean, buying a house is truly an adult decision. You don't one day wake up and say, "Let's buy a house." Oh how I wish it was that easy but I realized many people don't see it that way. I know of couples who don't do their finances properly and don't realize that they can't afford to buy a house they picked (for BTO).

An example of someone I know, booked a 5 room BTO with her soon-to-be husband without calculating their finances and after adding their HLE + AHG (Additional CPF Housing Grant, for combined income not more than 5,000SGD) + SHG (Special CPF Housing Grant, depending on your total income range with maximum of 6,500SGD) + current combined CPF in their ordinary account, they still do not have enough for the price of the flat. For those who have no idea what I am talking about, simply put like this:

HLE + AHG + SHG + combined CPF = The cost of flat you can afford w/out forking out $$$

However, after adding those components above and it does not add up to the price of the unit you have picked, you have to pay the balance in CASH when you collect your keys. Of course, the good thing about BTO is that you still have time to collect money in your combined CPF and if you have a pay raise/ change of job with a better pay, your HLE can increase. But if not, on the key collection period, you have to pay the difference in cash or you have to forfeit the house.

So for example:

BTO costs 350,000 and your HLE+AHG+SHG+combinedCPF is only 300,000. You have to fork out the remaining 50,000 in cash when you come to collect the keys when your unit is ready.

So like I said, buying a house is an adult decision. Not suka-suka pay $20 (sorry can't remember how much we paid when we applied for the sales of balance flats) to buy yourself a balloting ticket.

Anyway, I pity that person because on top of saving for a wedding that is in a few months time, they also have to save for their house which is coming up real fast. So after reading up on how does buying of houses work, we decided to look into resale which I did blog here.

We did house hunting after we came back from honeymoon and realized that Serangoon and Bishan were wayyy off our budget. I was actually disheartened because I wanted either of the locations. I am biased lah because I grew up in both estates and I am very lucky that Baobei doesn't mind and to quote him, "It is also easier to get to places." So I am like where's the next best place to live in? Hougang.

Matured estate, one exit after my house in Serangoon if we are referring to CTE. So I thought, it cant be that bad. We actually set an appointment to look at 5 houses in Hougang back to back, which isn't easy at all. Most houses are priced at 430,000 but they are negotiable. At the end of the 5 houses, we more or less decided on the first house but not fully into it. It was a Friday, I remember because the next day, I still cannot believe that I have to forgo living in either Bishan or Serangoon. Then I decided to lookup on PropertyGuru again before we commit and deposit to the first house in Hougang. Guess what I saw? A sweet deal in Bishan.

Called up the agent immediately but I told him that our budget is 4x0,000 only, so if the owner wants anything more than that, we can't afford it. So I told him to let the owner know so we do not to waste time to view the house because we will not be forking out cash for the difference of what we don't have. 10 minutes later, he called and said seller says come down to view if we like the place tomorrow.

I brought my parents down the next day because Baobei was working. He said if it is much better than the first house in Hougang, he is agreeable to it. Loved the location of the house. Loved the condition of the house, except the kitchen. The tiles are chipped here and there but the cabinet definitely needs a change. The owner just renovated both toilets 7 months ago so they are pretty new! So after we finished viewing the house, made another appointment for tomorrow so Baobei and Mak can view the house. So on Monday, we went to look at the house again and Baobei said it was much bette than the first house in Hougang, obviously. Mak loves it too! We went down to wait while the agent discussed with the owner about our budget. Then the agent said, "The owner is agreeable to your price which is weird because an Indian family offered him 10k more but he said no." Syukur Alhamdulilah.

So I got to pick a house that fits the bill:

• Centrally located; Bishan
• Big enough; 104sqm
• Everything is nicely proportionate. The living room doesn't eat into the rooms so that means all the rooms are nicely sized, even the master bedroom. The kitchen can even fit a dining table and people don't have to squeeze themselves to enter or leave.

Yes, yes I need to take pictures but we are in the midst of kitchen renovation and painting of the living room. Our house has no concept. The concept is "Whatever we feel like it because BabyRKM is more important." Haha.

People say we are crazy to take the maximum number of years (read: 25) to pay back our HDB loan because the interest is a killer (read: 2.4%) which means to say, when our house is fully paid for it would have cost us MORE THAN HALF A FREAKING MILLION. But guess what? It doesn't matter because CPF has been and will always be money we can never see, feel, touch so why bother and try to pay as much as we can to shorten the number of years (unless your pay allows or grows in years to come) if it is going to be hard on us (read: fork out $$$ from your pocket). It is bad enough 20% of our pay we don't even get to feel, so for us let it be.

Oh, guess what? We didn't engage an agent to help us with the process of buying the house and DIY-ed everything. It is pretty easy actually and we saved ourselves more than 4,000SGD instead of paying them that amount to do our paperwork (because agents take about 1% of the price of the house). I have a feeling that I have potential to be a house agent! Haha!

But the next entry will be 'Why resale is much better than BTO,' which will include how to DIY your paper work if you're buying a resale flat which can save you A LOT of money. Alternatively, you can pay me and I will do it for you at a fraction of what house agents charge. HAHAHA! Hey! If it works out for my parents, I will be doing their paper work when they SELL their house. It will save them almost 10,000SGD to pay a freaking agent. So how? Multi-talented eh.

Til the next house entry that probably offend TeamBTO, xo

Oh, happiest quarter century my soulmate and the baby daddy of my child. BabyRKM and I love you so much. We will have fun in KL tomorrow for our last holiday before our little one pops out and no traveling until she turns one.

And it is just less than 2 weeks before we enter 3rd trimester, so I guess baby updates soon too?