panjangowner

Hi Tim, Can you quote for Mitsubishi Starmex Inverter System 2? We'll need one 24,000 and one 9,000. We're getting the keys in end March and finishing reno approx June. Thanks!

Hola, nice blog there! However, seems like the ID and contractor didn't have good communication which ended up in so many issues. I would have exploded if it was me, kudos for being so patient with him. I guess that is the problem with IDs and they tend to sub-contract the manual aka dirty work to their contractors while they project manage resulting in so much issues. Some of them can design and 3D well without taking note of the minor details but still charge a design fee (hope they didn't for your case). Nonetheless, great to see your house is up and coming!

Just thought we did share abit on our journey in the selection of IDs & Contractor. Prior to making our choices between ID & Contractor, we were receptive to either but we already had an idea of how we wanted the house to be so it was more of getting someone who could execute our ideas and improve on it. We signed our option on 28 November 2015 and I arranged to meet 4 IDs/Contractor on the very same day. 1) Contractor A from L&B How we knew him: Through my colleague whom had engaged him to do up his BTO recentlyGeneral Review: He was the first guy we met and he had the advantage of taking a look at the unit personally since our seller was agreeable to it. Largely receptive to our concept and gave us suggestions along the way to improve and cut costs. Pretty prompt in replies via whatsapp and came back with a quotation within a week or so. He even brought along some samples of flooring for our second meeting which was value added service as some of the other IDs said they will show it to us when we head down to their showroom. As both of us were working and we don't drive so travelling down to their showrooms can be quite a hassle after work. His quotation came back quite above our budget so we made some amendments and we should be hitting our target of $30k. Throughout the initial phase, he was receptive to discussions via whatsapp which was really important rather than some who would just MIA. I did messaged him for his opinions on a sunday and he replied me patiently. My partner had to stop me from doing so as it was a Sunday and we should give him a rest. Rating: 8.5/10 (Reserved rating as we've yet to see his quality of work but service/communication wise top notch, absolutely no complaints)2) Jeffrey from I**** Interior How we knew him: Recommended via QanvastGeneral Review: Second guy that we met on the same day. The first impression he gave us was that he ain't gonna be cheap as he was docked in branded clothings. He was probably a designer and had no clue about the manual works. Since he was here, we decided to listen to what he had. He wasn't really prepared when he came as he did not even have our floorplan ready although I had emailed him previously. He explained that he had too many projects ongoing, etc. Fair enough, so we told him our ideas and he cut us off before we could even finish. He saw our floorplan and said he was very excited by it as he could revamp the whole house easily since it was so squarish. He then went on saying he could do this and do that without taking into consideration our budget constraint. He then showed us pictures of his ongoing projects in Orchard and asked us to guess how much the custom fridge cost which came up to $70k. We couldn't wait to kick him out of our house to be honest. He disappeared for the next few weeks till I asked him if our quote was ready. He met up with us and showed us the modified floorplan that was drawn by his assistant but no quote was given but he said it was not gonna be cheap. Huh?Rating: -100/10 (Don't bother with this joker unless you have deep pockets and have no idea what you want to do with your house)3) David from Int* Lab How we knew him: Recommended via QanvastGeneral Review: Third guy that we met on the same day. He gave us his well designed namecard/brochure upon meeting us and got down to business straightaway. He had our floorplan ready in his tablet and listened to how we wanted the house to be. We had high hopes for him initially but his quote came back way above our budget. Unfortunately, he is off our list too.Rating: 7/10 (He was pretty receptive to our ideas and came up with improvements)4) Jacky from L* P*** Design How we knew him: Recommended via QanvastGeneral Review: Fourth guy that we met on the same day. Similar to David, he was receptive to our ideas and listened to what we want. He told us that quote will be ready in about a week or so but we have yet to hear from him since. Since he wasn't keen then we weren't keen either. Rating: 6/10 (He was pretty receptive to our ideas and came up with additional suggestions but MIA)We met up with several other IDs/Contractors subsequently but they've yet to come back with their quotations so we will leave it as it is first. However, we are more or less decided on choosing one whom we were both comfortable with instead of us having to try and hunt them down just for quotations. Repeating ourselves over and over again to different people can be really tiring. If you ain't keen in us being your client then neither are we! Some pointers to note when engaging/discussing with IDs/Contractors Contractors - Go for them if you have a concept for your house and you know what you want. Show them your ideas and let them execute it but they will chip in here and there with their suggestions as they tend to be more on the ground when it comes to general works rather than playing the role of a project manager. IDs - Go for them if you are undecided on how you want your house to be like and need assistance in space planning if your house has weird pillars/holes/areas that you cannot do much on your own. Some IDs that we met tend to have a ready made idea in their head that they will tried to sell/propose to us. Some might incorporate your ideas into their ideas but end up with a totally different end product. Renovation is a massive costly project and loads of coordination need to be done (aircon/furnitures/electrical lightings/etc) but we are looking forward to it! Since our new unit is near my current place, I can pop by after work easily to just take a look at how things are going. Having a good contractor/ID will take away at least half of your headache as you wouldn't have to worry about not being able to find him or wonder where will he be if things screw up. It would always be good to start early so that we won't rush into making hasty decisions too!

In the meanwhile, we went to the furniture sale at Expo over the weekends and bought a King size bed from Vono (Egro 1200 max) for $1890/- with delivery scheduled in June 2016 and they did a free upgrade for us in terms of leather selection for the bed frame. That is one item of the shopping list with many more to come. Decided to scrutinize the renovation quote and decided to strike off certain items so that it will hit our renovation budget of S$30k. Some of the more costly things that we realised were not just carpentry work/flooring but other minor stuff. 1) Hacking of floor skirting + patching of damaged areas = $1000 2) Changing of toilet doors & room doors = $2000 Decided to do away with both and simply touch up the existing skirting while we overlay the flooring with vinyl, hopefully they will be able to complement each other. We've managed to some comparison in terms of carpentry labour prices and from one of the t-blogs here, we found http://www.carpentry.sg/pricing website which was actually quite good to estimate carpentry prices. As for doors, we found http://www.siongdoor.com/ and called them up. We were really glad to discover that the prices quoted include installation and that shaved quite abit off our renovation budget. He quoted us $280/veneer door including installation & toilet doors at $180/bifold door + acrylic panel. Well, as long as it works and looks pleasant to the eyes aesthetically. That easily saved us quite abit from our overall costing. Can't wait to get our keys in March and start the ball rolling!

Its actually kinda risky to try and rush everything before CNY cause the renovation cost might be jacked up due to limited supply of labour whereby alot of workers will go back to their countries or charge double for works done. We've more or less decided on the contractor as he was recommended thru one of my colleagues whom had his bto done up by him. We are in the midst of just meeting a few more to get more ideas and do some comparison on the prices of certain works. Ours unit is directly facing Jelapang LRT on the higher floors. We did view the units at Segar, for those will be much newer right as they were the later batches. Hmm we didn't have to do any contra as it was our first purchase so we only had to settle with the "buying" part on our end while the seller side engaged an agent for her side. From our experience, seems like what the agent did was simply posting the unit on propertyguru and being the middleman in arranging viewers. They will do up the necessary paperwork for you. He had to do up the checklists and etc for the owner. If you wanna DIY, there are links you can read up on the HDB website or https://www.ecitizen.gov.sg/Topics/Pages/Selling-your-HDB-flat-A-step-by-step-guide.aspx. I would advice you to get a good agent as there are some agents who put everything about themselves up in propertyguru but nothing about the flat they are selling. I guess it is better to be transparent with what you are selling which will save you quite abit of time of entertaining people who are not even interested in your unit but just wanna view. You will know the house probably better than the agent since you are staying there but what an agent does will probably be more on the convincing end. Just to share on our purchase, we had initially offered $430k for the unit (which was definitely on the lower end) and the agent was kinda shocked cause the unit was supposedly sold at $465k as so he claims so he tried to bargain for $460k on behalf of the owner. We finally settled at $450k which I believe that the Agent probably did exercise some of his convincing powers to get the deal through. Next year might be a tougher year to sell so you might wanna keep track of the timeline whereby you are getting your bto keys and at the same time selling off your unit. The timing is kinda tricky and if you are not confident, I would recommend an Agent to handle for you but at the end of the day its all about sourcing for buyers (which will probably still be through propertyguru), otherwise feel free to go for it DIY!

We're at Jelapang Road! Quite blessed because the buses are quite empty along Jelapang Road.

Draft floor plan with our requirements Initial quote came up to about $38k but we've decided not to go ahead with the built in wardrobe and the top kitchen cabinets. Revised quote came up to about $33k. I've removed the contractor's name for the time being. We have another quote by an ID which came up to about $45k for probably 3/4 of the works above. Any advice will be appreciated

reserved for final design & draft drawings

I used to stay in an EM in bukit batok when I was young and I loved how big the rooms were. In fact, we decided to write up on our journey after reading your tblog. Will be great to document it down for future reference too.

Mmm, we've met up with 3 IDs and 1 contractor. So far the IDs quotations are on the pricey end but the contractor whom quoted managed to fit within our budget of S$30k. I guess it is better to engage a contractor vs an ID if you know what you want. We found some photos online that matched our minimalistic/scandi theme and showed it to my contractor. IDs tend to sell their ideas to you (our experience) without taking into consideration of our budget which kinda pissed both my partner and myself off. We got our ID recommendation through and so far none of them really met our expectations in terms of costing. Another problem with certain IDs is that they tend to design well but leave the labour works to others which might be problematic in the future. A simple problem that my colleagues faced was that the built in table was unable to fit a desktop although that was the initial design requirement. We noticed that the most costly works ain't hacking but rather tiling and carpentry works. So we decided not to have the built in wardrobe (cost $3.9k for a 4 metre wardrobe) and buy 2 wardrobes for probably less than half the price which will serve the same purpose. Great for those who are budget conscious and the pros of buying a wardrobe externally allows us to change in the future when its damaged. For those who are budget conscious, it would be advisable to minimize carpentry works such as TV Consoles, Wardrobes or Tables as these can be purchased externally. There are furnitures which are just as beautiful aesthetically for a fraction of the price! Tiling works are really expensive if we gonna hack the tiles and redo the flooring so the contractor suggested to do overlay instead as the tiles are in very good condition. The only concern we have now is laminated flooring vs vinyl flooring. Read that laminated flooring is more resistant to scratches but not so from water. The main problem is that laminated flooring is chemically treated which ain't very healthy although prices are about the same with vinyl flooring according to my contractor! Will upload the quotation and modified floor plan from my contractor later. Oh yeah, come to think of it they are. But then again, the previous owner had used them for many years which is kinda mehhhh. Probably just buy new ones within a budget! Thats awesome and you can easily purchase your stuff from Ikea. I wouldn't suggest getting furnitures from them though as they tend to use wood of lower quality. Yup Bukit Panjang flats are still relatively reasonably priced as it is a non matured estate. Do hunt around and I am sure you will find something you really like!

Congrats! Are you a west-sider as well? We've met a mix of IDs and contractors and agree with you.. Their quotes are much more than our budget even though we've told them about it during the meeting. And there's a ID who refused to listen to what we want, which was rather frustrating... Have you guys decided on the renos yet?

Living Room Master Bedroom Common Bedroom 2 Toilets Kitchen Didn't manage to snap much photos but will make do with what I have at the moment. As you can see, the condition is pretty worn down and a major renovation is needed. On a good note, the house has minimal furnishings and fixtures apart from the kitchen/toilet/cornices/skirting. Main Hacking Works 1) Wall between master bedroom and bedroom 2 2) Wall between bedroom 3 and living room (replacing it with a half glass) 3) Wall in the kitchen to build an open concept kitchen with kitchen island) 4) Removal of cornices and skirting Tiling & Plumbing Works 1) Overlaying the floor tiles of living and bedroom with laminate/vinyl flooring 2) Overlaying the floor tiles of kitchen 3) Building cabinets and island for kitchen 4) Redoing both the toilets

After reading through some of the posts here, my partner and I have decided to add in our experience too. Just a little background, I am in my mid 20s while my fiancee is in her early 20s so we have a tight budget to get our family life started. Not gonna be easy but it would be an enjoyable journey! How It All Started Early 2015, we applied for the sale of balance flats in Choa Chu Kang/Bukit Panjang and the number was pretty crappy so we scrapped the idea of trying for BTO/Balance of Sales since the units are smaller and lesser grants. Factoring in our CPF and savings, we decided to hit the nail and go for resale flats instead since the market is somewhat bottoming now. Flat viewing started around Sept/Oct 2015 and we have already decided on the location which was Bukit Panjang. Simply went to PropertyGuru and shortlisted a few units, arranged with the agent for a viewing and off we went. Yes, plenty of our friends were wondering where on earth is Bukit Panjang but having stayed in Bukit Panjang for 10 over years, it is actually a very convenient location with the upcoming Downtown Line and buses. 20 minutes to Orchard via 972 or 190, seriously?! House Hunting Our fruitful yet tiring house hunting journey took us about 2 months. We started off by viewing flats randomly within the area and realised it was leading us nowhere as none of the units was to our liking. We then decided to view 2 to 3 units per area and once the units were not to our liking, we eliminated that area out of our choices as the units within that area were usually within the same batch so layout and design wise would be similar. We had a few requirements: 1) Corner Unit (For privacy) 2) High Floor (Feels good to be up there ) 3) Squarish layout (Easy to manage in terms of design) 4) Bright and airy (Good for health to have ample natural light! ) Simple requirements yet it was a nightmare just trying to find the right unit. Finally, we found one to our liking but the owner was reluctant to sell at our price and the agent told us that the house was previously sold at $465k but the buyer screwed up so the deal didn't go through. Considering how bad the market condition was, we decided to go ahead and offer a price of $435k which kinda shocked the seller I guess. The agent told us that he could try for $460k but we had no interest in paying over the market for the unit considering there was quite a bit of renovation to be done. Credits to my fiancee for being firm by telling the agent that we would settle for $450k, take it or leave it. To cut the story short, we finally settled for $450k and valuation came about to $450k so there was no COV on our part either. Gotta give the credit to my fiancee as I was pretty alright with paying $460k which was $10k more but we really liked the unit and the house hunting was really tiring. I just wanted to get it over and done with! DIY Procedures We decided that it was pointless to engage an agent since he will just be doing the paperwork for us when we could do it ourselves which saved us at least a few thousand since buyer's agent usually go for 1% of the selling price as commission! Seriously, pay them $4k plus just to do paperwork for us? Nah! Signed the OTP and exercised it with a total of $5k as deposit. First appointment scheduled in Feb 2016 and keys collection in March 2016. We decided to take up all the grants available to us which summed up to $50k from HDB and ROM was not an issue since we would be solemnized before our second appointment. The procedures are pretty simple as it is all documented in the HDB website, I spent about an hour digesting the website and we were good to go. The seller's agent even told us not to bother with engaging an agent to save on the fees and we could approach him if we needed help, just that he could not represent both sides. Well, if we screwed up and the deal falls through, he will be on the losing end too. Feel free to call up HDB if you are unsure of certain things and they are pretty helpful I would say. Tadah! Here is the floorplan of our house. The house has minimal renovation except for wall cornice and floor skirting since it was the first owner. Flat is about 18 years old so a major renovation was in the plans with a budget of $30k and another $5k odd for furnishings & furnitures. Original Floorplan Modified Floorplan (After hacking of walls)

just optioned a flat in bukit panjang at 450k. agent told me house was previously valued at $460k and deal was agreed at $465k but buyer screwed up so deal no go. looks like its 10k CUV for me. for areas that are not too popular, use HDB website to get a gauge on the recent transacted prices and bargain from there. its the buyers market...for now.