horseman

Your bad experience with Everjoint was even before you ordered. Mine was after I placed my order and paid in cash in full, two months before delivery. This was what happaned: http://www.renotalk.com/forum/index.php?sh...st&p=601430

I don't know about others, but my experience with Everjoint sucks. I ordered 11 KDK ceiling, ventilation and wall fans end Oct and paid in cash in full, more than $2k. For delivery, I arranged for the fans to be delivered in the morning. They arrived way past noon, after I called the company repeatedly to check. The boss of the company - a Mr Lee - said that there was a problem with the "lorry side" and that the lorry will be there in ten minutes. Ten minutes eventually became one hour. When I pushed the boss to confirm the delivery time, he asked me to show respect and talked nicely. When the fans came, the number of warranty cards did not match the number of fans and the rod length of one of the fans was wrong. The delivery guys were unhappy when I pointed the mistakes to them. Everjoint is cheap, but please do not make my mistake of paying cash in full, and be prepared for tardy service.

I am bumping this discussion. No one has any experience with solar water heaters?

Vendor's agent should ensure that vendor is rightful owner and has the authority to sell, otherwise the vendor cannot legally grant the option. If it gives you peace of mind and you do not have a lawyer when you make the offer, you can make an online property title information check with SLA. It costs only $15.75. The information will also include court notices which includes bankcruptcy action. Ask your agent to help you.

The sequence should be a. sort out finances (AIP) b. find the property c. make the offer for property d. once seller grants option to purchase, formally apply for loan using the OTP. Loan approvals are quite fast - I had facility letters within a week. e. decide on financing package and appoint a lawyer from the bank's panel f. instruct the lawyer to exercise the option g. sign the facility letter {can be done before or after you exercise the option} h. wait for completion of sale d, e and f has to be done before the option expires. If it is a straightforward case, the bank's panel of lawyers should be competently able to handle the property purchase. If you prefer to use your own lawyer and he or she is not on the bank's panel, you won't enjoy the legal subsidy. In my case, I appointed my friend whom I have known for years to handle my purchase even though he was not on the bank's panel. I didn't enjoy the subsidy but it was a small price to pay for the peace of mind of knowing that I have direct access to my trusted lawyer. The legal fee is but a small portion of the property purchase price.

URA's database records the caveats lodged, but not all private properties are transacted with caveats lodged. Even if a caveat is lodged, it is not immediate. So an alternative source of info are the weekly transactions published in the Business Times. It records actual transactions according to contract dates.

Without knowing the details in the tenancy agreement and condition of the sale of the property, it is rather difficult to answer the questions clearly. Generally when properties are sold with existing tenancy, the new owner takes cover the contractual obligations of the tenancy agreement. If the tenancy is a condition of sale and the buyer doesn't like the condition, don't buy. Buying it comes with contractual obligations stated in the tenancy agreement. The obligations are legally binding. Hence prospective buyers should at the very least take a look at the tenancy agreement before making an offer. The OTP will also include clauses stating that the property comes with tenancy, so exercising the option means agreeing to the conditions of sale. Upon completion of sale, the new owner will start collecting rent and take over the deposit. Properties with tenancy are attractive as investments because of the yield, but those who intend to occupy the property immediatelt after completion of sale should not have bought the property in the first place. I will not comment too much on "getting the tenant out", except to say that it is best done amicably within what is stated in the tenancy agreement. Also useful to check if the tenancy agreement comes with an automatic renewal or first right of refusal clause, because this means that the tenant can continue to occupy the property. Your agent or lawyer should have advised you properly when you bought the property. I hope this is helpful

You can make it a requirement in the tenancy agreement for your tenant to service the aircon. If they don't, you can use part of the deposit to get the aircon cleaned up before returning the deposit at the end of the tenancy. Anyway, I've been using Coolserve (http://www.coolserve.com.sg/) for years. They are on the pricy side ($300/year for three split units; HDB flat; four times a year), but they are reliable and responsive during the contract period. A couple of times they came to sort out aircon problems at short notice without charges because of the maintenance contract. They can do one-time job too, I suppose. I am sure there are other reliable aircon servicing staff out there.

Personally I don't think there is any speculation in public housing. The govt controls supply. There are strict rules on demand - income eligibility, foreigners not permitted, etc. Buyers cannot flip the flats for quick profit and there are rules on tenanting the unit out. So the increase in prices of HDB flats are largely due to asset appreciation, which is not a bad thing for asset owners. What the govt has to do is to find a balance between keeping public housing affordable while allowing the assets to appreciate in value. Also, there is a limit to how much public flats can appreciate in value as compared to private properties, hence making private properties more attractive to speculators.

I stand corrected, but I don't believe there is any precedent of residential properties running out of the lease in S'pore. The enbloc examples are lease top-ups for redevelopment purposes, way before the leases run out. This being so, the answers to the question are hypothetical at best. When the residential leases run out, the ownership of the property reverts to the state, so my guess is that the govt's decision and action will be driven by the maximisation of the value of land in accordance to the land use masterplan. If a mixed landed area is sited within low or high rise residential area, it will be redeveloped. If land use is the same and there are no takers for re-development, short lease extensions are possible. There is a cluster of terrace houses at Geylang Bahru that sits on 60-years leasehold land with the leases running out in 2020. It will be interesting to see what happens. My guess is that it will be redeveloped for sure.

CPF can be used for the second home loan including monthly mortgage servicing, as long as minimum sum cash component is met. The withdrawal for the 2nd loan is subjected to the withdrawal limit. The minimum sum at 2013 is $120,000, but because it is in 2003 dollars and adjusted for inflation, the actual sum in 2013 is likely to be much much higher. Already this year the adjusted minimum sum is $117,000 when the stipulated sum is $104,000. In the last three years, the minimum sum increased by $5,000, $6,600 and $11,000 respectively. The increase this year caught some people by surprised, and it was largely because of high inflation last year. Assuming low to moderate inflation for the next four years, I won't be surprised if the minimum sum in 2013 is in excess of $145,000, which means setting aside at least $72,500 to meet the minimum sum cash component to be able to continue to use the CPF for the 2nd mortgage.

This is my 2cents worth. First, buying property is not like buying consumer product where the products are homogeneous, there are ready alternatives and the products (and alternatives) are available when you want to buy them. Second, we cannot time the market. At best, we can just have a rough sense of where the market is heading. Third, the herd mentality is unexplainably strong in S'pore, which I do not understand. But when the herd runs, the prices head north irrationally. This being so, my principles are: - difficult to achieve perfect or near perfect we buy at rock bottom or sell at the peak. If we can buy at lower quadrant or sell at upper quadrant, we should more or less be satisfied - say if you know that prices are already at rock bottom, you may not be able to find the property you want - conversely if you are selling and are prepared to let go your property when prices are at the peak, can you find a buyer? - if you are buying, stay slightly ahead of the herd and don't catch the down draft My sense is that the consecutive months of record new home sales, HDB resale holding steady, plus the upward adjustment of the GDP forecast (still negative growth, but smaller contraction) suggest that the market will continue the upswing until it pauses or corrects. Those set on buying a property this cycle can wait for this correction. When and how deep this correction is, is open to anybody's guess. This is my general sensing for what it is worth. Caveat emptor.

For computation of minimum sum cash component, it is OA + SA. Lump sum withdrawals and monthly mortgages from OA only. My point is that forward planning is needed because minimum sum cash component increases each July. Meeting minimum sum this year does not mean meeting it next year, especially if OA and SA do not grow significantly. Say assuming I meet the minimum sum this year and I have $30,000 in OA and $30,000 in SA. I withdraw $1,500 lump sum for property purchase from my OA, reducing it to $28,500. I meet $58,500 minimum sum. My monthly salary is $4,500, so every month my OA increases by $945 and SA by $270 and the rest goes to MA. In one year (incl 13mths), my OA increases by $12,285 and SA by $3,510. If I had used all my OA to pay for monthly mortgage, my OA will remain at $28,500 (no increase since every dollar of the $945 that goes into the OA each month is used to pay for mortgage) and my SA increases to $3,510+$30,000 = $33,510. I'll only have OA + SA of $62,010. If minimum sum next year is higher than $62,010, I won't be able to use my OA for the monthly mortgage until the OA increases to a level where OA + SA meets the new minimum sum. And it is entirely plausible that the new minimum sum cash component will increase to more than $62,010 next year. My sense is that it will likely be $65,000 next July. One of my friend was caught in such a scenario this month. Hope this is clearer.

I'm in the same shoes as ome of you guys. Completing the sale of a single storey 2000 sqft inter terrace in the next few weeks and I see the monumental task of A&A or rebuilding ahead.

$58,500 - the CPF minimum sum cash component went up on 1 July 09 by $5.5k from $53,000. My wife and I were caught by the increase. We exercised the option in June but the sale will be completed after 1 July so the higher limit applies. CPF can be used for stamp duty and legal fees (in excess of the minimum sum cash component), but still have to pay cash first and apply to CPF to reinburse later.

We have to start somewhere

More tax avoidance than evasion, I think. The company can avoid GST registration by keeping annual turnover below $1mil. But this leaves an obvious a trail for the taxman to pursue if the same company directors keep registering small companies in the same trade in succession.

The four major auction houses are: Jones Lang Lasalle Knight Frank Colliers DTZ You can google their Singapore websites and asked to be put into their emailing lists. There is an auction cycle this week. The auction market is rather small and these auctioneers arrange among themselves such that their auctions do not clash. They are always held in the same place - Amara Hotel level 3 and the dates are published in advance. For bank sale properties, I've observed that some properties are rotated among auctioneers - if an auctioner cannot sell the property in an auction, the bank gives it to another auctioneer at the next cycle. I've staked out at the auctions for several months but I find the bank sale landed homes that come on the market generally unattractive. The reserve prices of the owners' sales are high. Contrary to the popular belief that there are good bargains that the auctions, banks are reportedly holding back from repo-ing homes and putting them on the auction block, because prices are pushed down for assets on distressed sale, so banks are instead allowing owners to list the properties as as owners' sale even if they are put up for sale via auction, so as not to press down the prices. Also, once you are interested in a property that is on the auction list, you can usually enter into private negotiations using the auction bids as reference if it has be withdrawn in a previous auction. The only exception is when the bank instructs that the property is strictly to be sold via auction only, and this is generally when a property is first put up for auction. Hope this helps.

To complete the sale of the private property, the financing can be broken up into three components: a) cash downpayment - 5% b) loan from bank - up to 90% with higher interests rates, but generally banks grant 70 to 80% for the 2nd property c) the balance from your CPF (from your OA in excess of the minimum sum cash component - currently $58.5k) a) is straightforward, as long as you make sure that the cash is not financed by personal credit line or other bank borrowings b) depends on the bank's assessment. The bank will consider your current HDB mortgage and other debts (e.g. car loan) in deciding whether to approve your private property loan. As long as your debt servicing ratio is one-third of your net income, you should be fine. Factors like age and monthly income are crucial. c) needs a little bit of forward planning. On 1 July this year, the minimum sum cash component increased by $5.5k, from $53k to $58.5k. Assuming that you withdraw your OA to the max limit permitted in excess of the minimum sum cash component, and from now till June next year you use the monthly contributions in the OA to service the mortgage which means that your OA will not grow significantly, so when it comes to July next year, the higher limit kicks in and you won't be able to use your OA to service the monthly mortgage and you'll have to match the shortfall in cash. This can be painful. So the idea is that if you only marginally meet the minimum sum cash component, you need to set aside a greater buffer or restructure your HDB mortgage so that both mortgages can be comfortably serviced taking into consideration increases in the minimum sum cash components each July, especially if you are not planning to sell your flat. Hope this helps.