Journey To Our Little Crib In The West (5 Room Resale)

[bipps 4]

Hi panjangowner! I've been popping by rt once awhile to reinstate that excitement of getting my new resale flat. As a new flat owner, I Diy-Ed and settled on a 4 room resale unit in jelapang after 2 weeks of viewing using similar method as yours as my first day of viewing 7 flats didn't leave an impression. Now can't wait for my first hdb appointment in mid January..wish the appointment date could be as immediate as possible so I could start on Reno before cny but appears like the peeps at hdb have their arms and feet tight up during this period.

Should appreciate this window period abit more as it gives me ample time to source for contractor. I've looked around for contractors and managed to find one with very reasonable rates especially in the carpentry side and also the lowest I found.

Good things don't come cheap, and expensive isn't necessary top notch. So I'm willing to forsake a little on quality it its within my budget of $35k. Have you confirmed your contractor? Do take time to visit his existing project to ensure their quality matches your expectations, nothing beats seeing the real thing vs touched up images on their hand phones or iPads. I visited the contractor's almost completed project and found some flaws that the owners also shared with me that will be rectified during the last phase. At the very least it keeps me prepared on the outcome of my flat should I engage him.

Keep us updated! would be nice if able to share concurrent updates on our flats in jelapang road! By the way, my unit is the quieter area nearer to segar lrt, what about yours?

[matchalatte 16]

hi! would you mind sharing more about your experience without any agent (here or PM are both fine). i'm very reluctant to engage one as well since mine's an executive flat and i'll be paying 2% which is equivalent to about 10K as a seller. on second thought, apart from them doing paper work, their job is actually to help persuade buyers to take up my flat (which is at a not very attractive location), and also to arrange for viewings etc. do you think those things are not impt and we can actually do it ourselves? i think as a seller, finding an agent is more impt than a buyer.

appreciate your advice. am selling my flat next year, already applied for a BTO. thanks!

Edited December 27, 2015 by matchalatte

[panjangowner 2]

Hi panjangowner! I've been popping by rt once awhile to reinstate that excitement of getting my new resale flat. As a new flat owner, I Diy-Ed and settled on a 4 room resale unit in jelapang after 2 weeks of viewing using similar method as yours as my first day of viewing 7 flats didn't leave an impression. Now can't wait for my first hdb appointment in mid January..wish the appointment date could be as immediate as possible so I could start on Reno before cny but appears like the peeps at hdb have their arms and feet tight up during this period.

Should appreciate this window period abit more as it gives me ample time to source for contractor. I've looked around for contractors and managed to find one with very reasonable rates especially in the carpentry side and also the lowest I found.

Good things don't come cheap, and expensive isn't necessary top notch. So I'm willing to forsake a little on quality it its within my budget of $35k. Have you confirmed your contractor? Do take time to visit his existing project to ensure their quality matches your expectations, nothing beats seeing the real thing vs touched up images on their hand phones or iPads. I visited the contractor's almost completed project and found some flaws that the owners also shared with me that will be rectified during the last phase. At the very least it keeps me prepared on the outcome of my flat should I engage him.

Keep us updated! would be nice if able to share concurrent updates on our flats in jelapang road! By the way, my unit is the quieter area nearer to segar lrt, what about yours?

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.

hi! would you mind sharing more about your experience without any agent (here or PM are both fine). i'm very reluctant to engage one as well since mine's an executive flat and i'll be paying 2% which is equivalent to about 10K as a seller. on second thought, apart from them doing paper work, their job is actually to help persuade buyers to take up my flat (which is at a not very attractive location), and also to arrange for viewings etc. do you think those things are not impt and we can actually do it ourselves? i think as a seller, finding an agent is more impt than a buyer.

appreciate your advice. am selling my flat next year, already applied for a BTO. thanks!

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!

[ricepapergirl 21]

Hi matchalatte!

Sorry for jumping in! Like panjangowner, we also bought our place without an agent but I think the situation is more complicated for the seller than it is for a first time buyer. It's not compulsory for the seller to have an agent though I think HDB probably would encourage having one for the seller. If you want to try your hand at it apparently HDB runs resale seminars. You can try the checklist for how to sell your HDB flat here[

[panjangowner 2]

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!

[panjangowner 2]

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 recently
• General 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 Qanvast
• General 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 Qanvast
• General 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 Qanvast
• General 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!

Edited December 29, 2015 by panjangowner

[panjangowner 2]

This was probably one of the most shabby quotes we've received so far from one of the contractors recommended to us by one of the renotalkers (probably self advertising).

[bipps 4]

This was probably one of the most shabby quotes we've received so far from one of the contractors recommended to us by one of the renotalkers (probably self advertising).

Would prefer if the contractor put more thoughts into it, seems like their quote is much lower than your budget, this based on your requirements?

[panjangowner 2]

Would prefer if the contractor put more thoughts into it, seems like their quote is much lower than your budget, this based on your requirements?

Actually there are some fine wordings such as us having to purchase our own tiles while they supply the labour. If someone actually provides me with such a half-hearted quote, I won't even have the confidence to engage him to be honest!