Husky

Would like to get some expert opinion on this.

I am not sure if it is humanly possible for someone who make $100,000 a year to put aside $92,400 for mortgage and survive on $7600 a year or $633.33 per month? Thanks for sharing anyway.

Gut feeling will make your ego feel better but definitely not your investment because if you cant quantity what you are investing you wont know how to manage it. Unless if your investment strategy is all about working for the money and not letting your money work for you. You might want to tell us what sort of loan amount are you talking about when you "smartly" claim you can pay off a $1m property in 10 years and ?? months based on 100K pa salary. you should teach the thread starter how to off load his property with a click of a button. fire sales discount?

I dont see why a weaken property sector will make reits becoming more attractive in the near term. Buying reits just because its share price has fallen by 50% is just like trying to catch a falling dagger and hoping you dont get cut. You should do more reading about the reits before making an investment decision, plus not all reits a equal.

Reits is simply a "tool" use by property companies to avoid paying corporate taxes, hence its primary business is basically to manage the properties (not own) and distribute the profits generated from its properties. As the saying goes, higher returns will mean high risk, hence when comparing the potential returns of reits you should also look at the risk involved too. The attractiveness of REITS is very dependent of the company's abiklity to generate profits from its properties because REITS is a dividend stocks. If you look at the stock price of the REITS listed on Singapore exchange, I would say that ALL reits have lost more than 50% of the value since 2007. So suppose if you have chosen to sink your money in Reits instead of buying property, your investment would have been ->50% by now. So which is better?

Our forefathers are all "modern" people during their times and greed doesnt only exist in recent years or recent generations, it existed since the beginning of mankind. And the big one which everybody remember, happens to be during our grandpa times, the great depression of the 1929, when people are borrowing money to speculate on stocks. Furthermore greed and overgearing is not a problem that is confined to only younger people but rather people of all ages and people who are ignorant about the risk of their investment and have poor financial planning. When you invest in property (as oppose to speculating in property) you are always looking for medium to long term property appreciation rather than immediate gain because property is not a liquid asset like stocks where you can buy and selling with a click of a button.

bad investment are usually made by people who make investment decision based on gut feelings rather than looking at the numbers, such as ROI and cashflow. If saving on interest is a measurement of smart investment, then why didnt you consider accumulating $1m cash before buying the $1m property because in that way, you not only pay zero interest, but you get +% interest by putting your money your FD. If you are 100K pa earner, care to share with us how you pay off $1m loan in 10 years?

You have made a mistake by doing a double deduction. The $25K interest component is part of $36K yearly installment.

hi thanks for the help. I already found someone to do it. we will be going for wood structure instead (either Kapur or Chengal) because we are only intending to have my bed up there. Did your contractor tell you what is the loading factor on the mezzanine floor?

Thanks for the info. I will get my contractor to include the heat insulation foam..

My understanding of diverting "Chi" in the context of Fengshui is diverting Energy, not so much on blocking or preventing wind from blowing through because if is the latter, the simplest solution will be to close the windows. By having a ceiling to floor partition to "block" the chi, I am wondering will that also create another problem of having dead chi behind the partition, in this case your living/dinning area. As i have read in many fengshui books that dead chi often occurs around corners of the room and one way circulate the dead chi is by having a plant at the corner, as oppose to having a fan blowing at the corner. Hence based on the same principle, I dont think it is correct to say that blocking chi is similar to preventing the wind from flowing through.

Thats something new to me. From what I have read and heard, they say that you can even use plants as a "barrier" to block the chi from flowing out and hence I am curious why are you insisting that it has to be a solid ceiling to floor partition?

Anybody here know of any companies that manufacture wooden louvre doors?

1) If you bought your property at the peak, you are definitely going to lose money if you sell it now. However if you dont have holding power, then selling to cut loss will definitely be the only option for you. 2) If you bought your property >2 years ago, chance are, your rental income will be sufficient to finance your mortgage payment. Then again, it also depend on what property we are talking about here.

I lost about 9kg and 2.5" waist line, over the last 6 months and what I did was simply. 1) Avoid unncessary sugar if i can. for example, I always ask less sugar in my kopiO and I avoid snacking 2) Only eat 2 meals a day, ie. a proper breakfast in the morning and a proper dinner + fruits. During lunch, I will usually take some fruits and low salt/low sugar biscuit. 3) When I reach home from work, I will go for a 45-60min jog, or a 1 hour swim. However please take note that when you swim, you have to control your diet because you will tend to eat more. Also the best time to jog is actually in the morning right after you wake up hence try to schedule for a morning jog with an empty stomach during the weekend. You cant also try other sports like cycling and aerobics, as long as it is good cardio exercise. 4) Avoid beer, especially those wheat beers 5) Park your car further aways from your destination so it will encourage you to walk more. E.g if you want to go takasimaya, try parking at Center point or something.

Why not consider a partition with a water feature. that way you will get the water (wealth) without having to maintain the fish tank. Got someone to view my place the other day, I was told that I could use wooden blinds or shutter at the window to prevent the chi from flowing out.

my biggest concern is that when I go out to choose lights on my own, I will always end up picking shape and design I like instead thinking weather a ambient, accent or task purposes light will be better to create the right mood for the house.

How do you choose what type of lights to use for your home? Do you get a lighting shop guys to come down and view the place or do you leave it do your ID or DIY? Anybody know where is a good place to buy lightings for outdoor terrace?

There is really nothing "unseen" about what was mentioned because if you have personally owned a property before, you should be about to calculate the running cost in 5-10 mins. Investing is like running a business, hence if you have no knowledge in business and have no appitite for risk, then you shouldnt be in it in the first place. A FD giving your 1% returns might be a better place to put your money. Like have said, how you managed your personal finance and have thin your spread yourself is inmaterial to what I said about maximising rental returns by getting the maximum loan for investment property.

How you manage your money, how thin you spread yourself are things that are personal hence that cannot be use as a case to rewrite the principle of maximizing returns for investment property. E.g. A and B, both earning $100,000 per year bought the similar investment property at $1m each and A took a 90% loan while B took 50% loan, both over 25 years @ 3% per year. Using the mortgage calculator, A’s annual interest mortgage payment for the first few years will be about $25,000, while B will be $14,000 Assuming the annual rental for the property is $60,000 per year, that will equate to an additional taxable income of (60K-25K) = 35K and (60K-14K) = $46K for A and B respectively. As such because of the investment property, A will have to pay an addition, $5950 income tax per year, while B has to pay $7820 per year. (@14% tax rate) In term of returns on capital outlay, A invested $100,000 on the property and generate a return of $60K-5.95K-25K = $29.05K or 29.05% per year, while B invested $500,000 on the same property generate a return of $60K-7.82K-14K= $38.18K or 7.63% per year Hence from an investment point of view, it is clear that A is making his money work harder than B.

Investment property is all about returns, it is not so much about having a roof above my head or weather I get to own it or not. (Not like you can take them with you when you kick the bucket or something:) Your ability to borrow at 3-4% interest for your investment property should be seen as an asset because that allows you to free up your cash for another purposes like business, or paying off your occupied property because mortgage interest cant be use as expenses. On the other hand, mortgage interest from your investment property is classified as deductible expenses, hence it will help you avoid paying more income taxes which range from 3.5 to 20% at the moment. You will need to be a speculator to generate 100-200% return a year and in stock market you lose as fast as you gain. Since the peak in 2007, STI has fall by over 30% and it seems that there is still no light at the end of the tunnel. Property doesnt give you such high returns and its not as liquid, however it is still one of the best hedge against inflation over time.

In the past, the biggest worry for buying resale 99 leasehold property is getting bank loan because CPF withdrawal was only allowed to use for buying property which has at lease 60 years remaining. However in 2005, this rule has been extended to 30 years. And that sort of explain why 99 leasehold property has become more attractive these days. I was talking to another property agent recently and his view is that there is still a huge price gap between floravale and condos around the lakeside area, hence there is still alot of upside potential. Furthermore, over the past 1 year or so, Singapore government has managed to attract several multi millions and billions investment into Tuas and Jurong area, hence this will likely to bring in more expat community to the west. Just enjoy your stay at floravale, its definitely a good buy.

Foreigners are the main catalyst to the booming property market in Singapore, hence I am sure that foreigners will be quick to snap up apartment at floravale because they are priced at about 450psf as compared to lakeshore which is goign for above 800 psf. In terms of noise, I actualy find living next to the MRT track noisier than living around floravale because F16 doesnt fly by everyday and if they do, it is only for that 5mins. The time gap between estate painting has to be determind by the condition of the estate, which is greatly dependent on the building design and type of paint use as well, hence it will not make economical sense for the management to set a time line for repainting. plus lets not forget that the reason why floravale was given the BCA Construction Excellence Award.

Haha...good chi will become smelly chi is it? btw, does the partition need to be solid and opaque, or can it just that is transparent or like a bamboo fence or something?

My apartment is NS facing and my front door is directly facing the window. Can someone give me some suggestion on what I can use to prevent the Chi from flowing out of the house?