Things we wish we knew: Before buying our house (Singapore resale, 4-room HDB) 

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Thank you so much for the kind comment!☺️🙏🏻 have a great week ahead!

I agree

Thank you for the summary!

Agreed 💯 we hope to not work until super stressed 🙈 thank you!!☺️🙏🏻

👍👌

Yes agreed, peace of mind is so important 💯☺️ also 4 room sometimes when we are overwhelmed with work, we also feel “Wah heng our house not so big, else clean until we Toh” 🤣

Thank you for your kind comment & also for remembering my blog from long ago haha!! 😆 Yes I do think as we grow older we realise there’s not just one way to live.. and what other people want for their lives may not be what we want also, so it’s important for us to make our own decisions and live life the way we want (as long as no 杀人放火🙈) !

@@pxdkitty yessss!! I'm so happy as an influencer you're showing the world that there's various ways to live :) we don't all have to live in beautiful condos, go to expensive spin classes and eat atas desserts XD happiness can be as simple as spending time with your cats and partner in a tiny and cosy house ❤ rly hope your YT journey goes well 🙌 i love your videos!!

@@sharmine1997 yeah!! Really is 开心就好☺️☺️👍🏻

Agreed! Thank you for this comment!☺️ the accrued interest goes back into our cpf account, so while we don’t get as much cash on hand, it can be used for next home / for retirement 👍🏻

But ah, if we use it for the next home (or the longer the CPF is "borrowed" from our own account for the house payment), more and more accrued interest will be accumulated and more of our hard-earned cash automatically converts to CPF. Plus, at the end of the day, it's unlikely that we live long enough to enjoy a bulk of our CPF retirement sum..

You don't have to pay back grant if you purchase another resale hdb or pte property. Consult a professional instead of spreading misinformation here

Thank you for sharing your experience with us! ☺️🙏🏻 yeah hopefully won’t have to get to the extent of anyone chasing us for payments (Choi!) 🙈

That’s a really good point you raised! Thank you so much for sharing this! 🙏🏻 nothing Beats experience ☺️

@@pxdkitty most welcome.

Thank your for your kind comment ❤️❤️ we’ll try our best to post more ☺️🙏🏻

I tot 4 room is like over 350k for sure. Where is the location.

The pleasure is all ours! Good luck on your house hunting! May your find your dream home!

Thank you for your comment! I think what we’re worried about is when the unexpected happens (Choy Choy). That one or two months of flexibility might be really crucial for some people though.

@@pxdkitty It's not guaranteed. The only reason HDB takes longer is because there are more processes. It's not out of the goodness of the organization. If you're up top in the queue to get f*****, then you aren't getting those one or two months.

@@seanlingham5254 i see, this is just what we heard from our Friend, hopefully we don’t go through that. There’s a comment someone posted he got a special case by case exception from HDB though. But I Guess like you said, not guaranteed.

@@pxdkitty Don't say that. I bless you that you and your husband don't have to go through such difficulty. Just stating that it's not something to keep as a consideration. Better not to have it in mind.

Thank you for your input! It’s really nice and refreshing to hear from so many different perspectives & for us to learn from others ☺️

Thank you so much for sharing your experience! Really appreciate it ☺️🙏🏻 What are your thoughts on paying your home with cash monthly, and then keeping the cpf untouched for the interest rates? As we saw several advocates of this from the comments (also protected against bankruptcy).

@UC7a0vZH4GBmN_Tzv6xSe8vg that’s definitely something we should work towards also! Thank you so much!

@@pxdkitty remember to top up your MA to max as soon as possible. This is because, as you work, your future MA $ contribution will automatically go to SA. You can enjoy more interest rate at SA than OA. After 55, RA account is created with your SA 1st, instead of OA (if your SA still didn't reach max sum)

@@drizzt167 this is awesome! Thank you for the tip! Definitely wished they taught us this in school haha!😆

@@pxdkitty in future, if you want to reduce you income tax, make CPF donation for your parents. You could use this avenue as an alternative to bank (if your parents are pass 55, they can withdraw at any time)

Thank you for highlighting this!😍 that’s a great point to consider too!

@@pxdkitty Thank you both for sharing about your hdb resale purchase. It was informative : )

@@timothyweikiat6340 the pleasure is ours!☺️🙏🏻

@timothy I believe that's not the case when your lock-in period is over. I think there's a product that even offers partial payment within the lock-in period..

thank you for your kind comment!☺️🙏🏻

Thank you for your comment! ☺️ like we mentioned in our case, we really rushed into buying our resale home without much considerations 😳 & therefore making this video so people can consider first before buying like us 🤣 I think if we don’t suddenly become super Huat, then probably we’ll just stay in this home till we’re old (hopefully we don’t outlive our home 😅) We’ll go find out more about the lease buyback scheme! Thank you for sharing with us 🙏🏻☺️

I think they are 20s or 30s..they look so young

Thank you so much!

Thank you so much for the kind comment! It means a lot to us ☺️❤️

Thank you so much for the kind comment ☺️🙏🏻

Probably very ulu location

Thank you for your kind comment!! Really appreciate it ☺️❤️

☺️☺️💪🏻💪🏻 we still have a long way to go, but will Jiayou towards it~~~

Yishun! But actually woodlands we saw even cheaper, but our parents thought it was very far from their place (actually not much difference distance wise!). As long as not prime location actually the pricing becomes more affordable. If you drive, actually can just choose a bigger home at a less prime location and save $. But someone also commented about transport costs (especially if have kids going to Sch/ they commute to work etc), then in that case a conveniently located home is better ☺️

😆😆😆

@@user-jd2dn5fb2g If govt did not intervened in the 90s, now will be much more worse

thank you!

Yes that’s a great suggestion! 🙏🏻 I think many people (like us) were afraid of paying cash for our home, and we only recently realised we should try to pay as much in cash as possible. For now, we’re trying to pay in lump sums first whenever possible ☺️ Thank you for your helpful comment!

@@pxdkitty No worries you are welcomed, hopefully you dun find me intrusive! Thanks for releasing this video to share with others your home purchase and renovation journey :) Is there anything you would do differently in your home purchase and renovation journey? :)

@@jefflim7020 haha actually maybe quite a few reno changes like requesting for concealing of wires for our home, maybe changing the design of the toilet, and using a toilet sink that’s less chio but easier to clean 🤣 Also maybe we shouldn’t have cleared our cpf OA for our home, but then again that time really cash tight haha so maybe we can make the changes moving forward. But I think everything happens for a reason, and is also a good learning experience, so next time hopefully we can slowly upgrade ☺️

@@pxdkittyThanks for your advice and sharing, will take it into account when I'm buying my own house and renovating the next time :)

@@jefflim7020 all the best for your future plans! 💯💯💪🏻☺️

we actually got it during aug 2019. (signed the otp). resale property price was quite low at that time and the ex owner was in the rush to sell it, so we bargained a little to seal the deal!

Hello! Actually we are ok with 3rm too! But the resale homes we found, around this price range, we found this one (4rm), and other 3rm ones around the same pricing. So to us it made more sense to get 4rm since it cost the same (but location not as good). Ours is corridor unit, but you can put those 1 sided mirror film (you can look out but outside can’t look in), which also helps with blocking out uv rays.

Ours is 30years old already, and not near central area (considered ulu) so I guess it’s around this pricing ☺️ we actually saw some further flats that are even cheaper leh haha!

Also like in our video we spoke to our friend who bought first hand bto, around same pricing as ours but brand new 99 years🙈

Yes yes I know if bto pricing around there! My bf and I also just got an open booking flat and the pricing around 290k! Anyway thanks for the reply coz when I watching your video then I told my bf, my bf said doesn’t make sense leh the pricing. So thanks for the reply now I can tell him! Very grateful for all the super informative videos! Hdb / dishwasher / wedding shoot Appreciate it! Support 💕

@@jemielim1106 no problem dear! Really glad that our video can help! Excited for you already! Jiayou!!

@@pxdkitty Hi!! May I asked further, for the $268k, is it after all the grants deduction? And if you don't mind to share, may I ask which district is your house located?

Hello! Thank you for this! Yes sure, we’ll do a video to share our experience with doing the OTP on our own ☺️

@@pxdkitty awesome ! Looking forward to it

The accrued interest will ultimately go back to our CPF for retirement. So while it’s something to consider, at least the money belongs to you too! Just that cash on hand will be lesser if we pay for the accrued interest! ☺️

The loan interest (be it bank or hdb loan) is the one that we should worry about more 🙈

@@user-jd2dn5fb2g hi, Though hdb interest is pegged @ 2.6%, think accured interest as you taking a loan from your (future) self. Another explanation is all the principal and interest (lum together) are you paying the exact amount full amount as the price of the apartment (at the beginning), with (this is important) benefits like lump sum repayment, readjustment of monthly loan quantum, (important) shielding from crisis (like financial, epidemic) as hdb are very lenient. bank loan have advantage of lower interest but are impassionate with crisis and will not accept certain borrowing sum. So you need to have a buffer in case of crisis. Please learn through past history on financial crisis, to see if you can survive them. (1997, 2001, 2003, 2008, 2020, those that I can remember) If you are young and not financially stable. This short term advantage (bank loan) might not be your cup of tea, if you are unable to tide over. Hdb allows you to repay early lum sum (when your future self earns enough to do so) or increasing loan repayment (I didn't used this or I don't know if hdb allows it) , banks don't like this. So in summary, accured interest are just the expected money you expect your cpf money will grow as you withdraw the amount from you OA account. If you combine hdb loan and cash lump sum repayment (do it asap), you would gain financial freedom sooner, with safety net. My advice is to use hdb loan, then quickly use cash (or, optionally, OA) to top up your MA (1st) & SA (2nd) to rush up your RA to max, then clear the remaining loan (lump sum) with cash. All these also help you reduce tax 😍. Note, this advice is for unsavvy in investment, insurance, etc. (as most ppl is). All private institution are not so friendly when crisis hits. Do remember to have cash buffer (at least 6 mths) to tide over crisis. ✌️ Please look at my other comment for more elaboration. Cheers

Yes that’s correct, that works too cause the interest is by per annum ☺️

actually if you take a look at the year by year breakdown, you are actually paying most of the interest in the first 10 years of the loan and very little of the principle. So, if you wana save on interest you need a super short loan like 5 years which is tough. there isn't much of a different between a 10 year loan or a 25 year loan cos most of the Interest has already been paid so might as well extend as long as possible.

@@YokNg thank you for this! Time for my husband and I to do some math and see how we can lower interest without adding too much stress on ourselves 🙏🏻☺️

@@user-jd2dn5fb2g yea but the installments are gona be a killer

hey u are absolutely right! many ppl commit to buying things including something as important as a house thinking that they will be forever keeping their jobs.

Hello Michelle, we actually found our home on 99.co, managed to negotiate the pricing a little with the seller and closed it at 268k. Did the OTP ourselves and 2 months later, the house belongs to us!

For us our jobs aren’t very stable to be honest, and my husband cafe just closed down last year during circuit breaker 😅 so we aren’t very sure if income will grow with our career in the next few years also so we didn’t want to take the chance. But if really in future we can do better, maybe then can consider upgrading ba ☺️ Thank you for your comment!

Can.If you buy smaller bto flat like 3 room and pay off within 5 to 8 years and sell off,you wiuld be earning at least 50k to 60 k profit at least.

@@Kaplantay that the problem; this means that 3 room flats are at least $50K - $60K more expensive than before. What I am saying is that those who purchased BTO or resale with the mindset that they want to flip it in future for profit are the very reason why HDB are getting so unaffordable.

@@MsEverAfterings That not the problem but the natural progression of supply and demand curve.Imagine if the flat are not so expensive that mean that there are no demand.What constiute to no demand ? It mean no progress.That is why the government give out grant to first timer to cushion their burden and maintaining the supply and demand curve at a healthy rate. The nature of exchanging money by selling and buying enable bank or hdb to generate profit and keep the enconomy going.Imagine all hdb flat at a flat rate of 3 room 100k 4 room 150k 5 room 200k,who will suffer?The bull whip effect is huge.No want want to sell or buy.Bank Hdb will not earn money..agent no jobs..contractors and designers no jobs...no need to buy applicances..etc.. That say ,just buy within your means and plan out your own saving as we can never stop the supply and demands

Yes. I bought my flat $400k total resale in bishan few years back. Took loan $345k. Paid $70k off in advance. Repayment period dropped from 25 yrs down to 16.5 years

Hello! In our case we put in lump sums (whenever we can) from cash to pay off the hdb loan. This reduces the years left for us to pay back the loan, which in turn lowers the total interest we’re paying. On the HDB website, you can make a partial capital repayment of your outstanding hdb loan (can use paynow, axs and other modes of payment). This will shorten the repayment method while continuing to pay your usual monthly instalments (we still paying monthly via cpf, but many people advise paying cash as well).

Haha!! I guess Singaporeans’ English accent is like a mix of everything ba 😆

Hello! Sorry we didn’t get to reply because one of your comments didn’t come through fully 🙏🏻 I saw 2 comments on the notification but only 1 appeared on our video, so we didn’t get the full info on what to reply. Could I ask what’s the first comment you posted so we can get the full context?☺️

We thought it was a RU-vid error and wanted to wait for both comments to appear so we can read and reply properly as well (it hasn’t appeared even now). We’re just here to share what we learned so that everyone who watch this can avoid the same mistakes we made and plan their purchase properly. We’re sorry you’ve met not so nice people in NS, but we hope you’ll meet more nicer people along the way! We have no negativity nor biasedness on our platform, not to worry 👍🏻

@@pxdkitty Hi Rach, no worry. I give ppl second chance one. I just replied and I think got error again. :) Background: My one also resale 4 room HDB flat bought in May 2019 Tampines, but our flat bigger la 110平方米, total is $465K. I Also opted for HDB 25 year loan, every month I only pay $903 from CPF OA. Downpayment I used up all CPF, my saving and get financial support from my mum and mother-in-law. When my wife got pregnant, I immediately rented out both single room earning $1200 monthly. Now they went back to China, I had 8 month baby son now. They have no intention to back SG under COVID for now. 1. Wanna support u guys for this video as I feel so connected due to so much similarities: our age, HDB resale, CPF etc. 2. Do u think I pay $465K is reasonable price? I feel a little bit overpaid la. 3. My advice: stick to HDB loan. Intention must be live here until die. Cause u sell confirm make losses. Do not listen those bank refinancing all BxxxSxxx, later ask u repay back big time lol. Maybe like us, u make one single room and renting out. Why not? Generate some passive income :)

@@guoxingeorge8495 yeah the total sqft you mentioned sounds like almost 5 room flats. And maybe the pricing is also higher based on the location? Cause for our home maybe it’s more ulu, therefore lower price. Actually having a good location you save a lot on transport and you’re paying for the convenience (amenities are of walking distance from your home), so that’s actually a good consideration for those who’re looking to buy their new flat, especially if no plans to buy car (at the moment). Yeah I do think if we sell will make a loss, so stay here long time would be better. Renting for passive income sounds good too! One step closer to a more stress free life 😆

@@guoxingeorge8495 thank you for sharing your experience with us!☺️

I guess got pros and cons of living in Singapore. We’ve also considered migrating overseas before and moving out of sg, but then again many people also dream of living in sg.. the grass is greener on the other side 🙈