Moving Right Along - "The Hunt"

Man, it has been awhile since I picked up the keyboard and posted something.  Nevertheless, I have an excuse--I WAS MOVING!

Breaking News: I am out of the artificial living of a serviced apartment--The Pan Pacific Serviced Suites on Beach Road was very nice, but living 4 months in 435 sq. ft. with no opening windows gets old. 

Julie and Christopher came down in early June for 6 days to house hunt.  Friends of ours had suggested that we contact House Hunters International to see if we could be in it.  That was a big NO because someone is always edited to be difficult and unreasonable and I would not let them do that to Julie. 

My company provided us with a leasing agent; Eddie from LandPLUS and he was great.  He asked for a list of what we wanted in a condo and because of our extensive HHI training, we already had a list:

• 4 Bedrooms
• High Floor with a view
• Within 10 minute walk to an MRT (train/subway)
• 30 minute or less commute to work
• Pool and Gym
• Select neighborhoods (Newton, Novena)

We had also been surfing Property Guru for almost a year.  A great site that lists all properties for sale or lease in Singapore.  You can set a whole bunch of filters to narrow things down and most of the listings have “virtual tours”.  Bottom-line is we had a good idea of what we wanted.  And Eddie came back with what we wanted, including one we didn’t know we wanted.  After looking at a bunch of places we narrowed it down to two, one in Newton and one in Orchard (Eddie’s suggestion). (I know on HHI they always have 3 to choose from, we made it easier by not having to scratch the third choice.)

The Newton condo was one of the ones we gave Eddie.  The place was still occupied, but most of their belongings had already been shipped home.  It had 4 bedrooms and a study alcove, but we weren’t thrilled with the layout.  It also need some work on the shower, paint, and the a/c faceplates were yellowed plastic.  But the price was right.

The Orchard condo was in the process of having the wood floors in the bedrooms sanded and refinished as well as marble floors being polished.  Everything had been painted and the views were fantastic.  We were concerned about 2 things; 1) Google said it was a 17 minute walk to the Orchard MRT station, 2) It was a little above budget.

So Julie, Christopher, and I went the next day via Uber to time the walk to the bus stop and the MRT.  Five minutes to the bus and in another five minutes we were underground at Orchard Ion on our way to the MRT.  Getting underground in Singapore means you are dry and cool, so I stopped the clock at that point.  So issue #1 was no  longer an issue.  Issue #2 was handled by Eddie.  He negotiated the price down and it was a done deal.

So we will be living up high in a 4 bedroom high-rise building with a pool (three actually) and gym in Orchard about 35 minutes from work.  DONE!