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?