Singapore Expats

Will be moving to Singapore December 2015. Just wondering about living in Tanah Merah. How is it, quiet? boring? any personal experiences... What recent rentals are going for there.

Looking for 3BR. Will be working near Bugis. So, MRT works well. Need to stay on the east side.

FYI ... I've only just found found settled rent and sales prices on URA.GOV.SG a really good indicator for how much negotiated rents go for.

See . for rentals. If you have kids, unless you can negotiate an education package for International School, you will have a big problem.

Thanks. Just wondering about the area and how folks like it... Not worried about kids.

See what? For rentals??

angmo wrote:Thanks. Just wondering about the area and how folks like it... Not worried about kids.

See what? For rentals??

. is a local property portal.

angmo, this board is run and supported by a property sales and rental group. Clarice1 attempted to post the URL of another property website and that is not allowed for obvious reasons.

One thing that you will quickly learn about Singapore is that if you are not in a condo or in a large HDB development, Singapore looks surprisingly similar no matter where you go on the island. Everywhere on the island you will find terrace houses... houses that are joined together with a common wall for the whole block, semi-detached, aka, duplexes, and landed properties, standalone houses.

I suggest that you bring up maps.google.com and enter, "Tanah Merah, Singapore". It will bring up the MRT station. Click on some streets in the area and go to street view. You'll see what I'm talking about. Now, try some other places on the island. It will look very much the same.

Thus, when you ask a question like, "is it quiet" or, "is it boring", it's kind of like asking if one suburban neighborhood is more quiet and boring than another. It's rather meaningless.

What matters more is the location of things that matter to you. Tanah Merah is very close to the airport and the ferry terminal to Batam island... if you travel a lot, you'll like it. On the east coast, it is about as far away as you can get from the CBD. It's close to East Coast Park. If you're working at Bugis, that's pretty much a straight shot but the MRT can get very crowded.

I can't help you with other things like shopping, restaurants, theatres, and the like as I resided in Watten Estates.

If you lived in a place that's boring and noisy, you'd know.

Sorry about coming on and asking meaningless questions.

Makes me feel very welcome to Singapore. Hope everyone is not like this.

.... and if they are, what would you do? Perhaps better get used to it... the 'approach' here is a better side of SG as you might find (IMHO) - do not expect a red carpet or much overt friendliness though (in SG, as a rule).

I'd suggest considering this -> http://forum.singaporeexpats.com/viewtopic.php?t=101985 - 'GUIDE: Where should I/we consider living?

p.s. Tanah Merah, can't help, never been....

Yep, I am prepped for the move and the like.

The Q was merely about the location and surrounding area.

Since its closer to the airport, is there noise or is it far enough away. The Q was related to folks experiences there. I understand its no party district. Just general comments. I also know not many forum folks login in, will read this post and respond that also live there. So just tossing the Q out there.

No need for a red carpet. Totally expecting a fleet of Bentleys for pickup at the airport anyway... LOL

angmo wrote:If you lived in a place that's boring and noisy, you'd know.

Sorry about coming on and asking meaningless questions.

Makes me feel very welcome to Singapore. Hope everyone is not like this.

You're kind of touchy, aren't you? If you lived in Singapore, you'd know the question is meaningless. Narrow streets in the neighborhoods, trash pickup everyday, junk man beeping his bike horn a couple of times a day. Unless you are prepared to pay humongous electric bills, you'll soon "go native" and all your windows will be open all day. The noise is part of life. The parrots, nightjars, parrots, mynas, and koels all make a hell of a racket, day and night... like this koel... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EZ66v4T7Zw... put ten of those beggars in your neighborhood and ask me if it's quiet.

Somewhere there will be noise of a lightweight concrete hammer at work because there's always a house being remodeled. Enjoy the irritating, far too loud, two stroke motorbike delivering your Straits Times paper to your door early each morning. You live right next door to each other... you'll hear music, fights, banging and clanging. You'll smell their cooking. So you tell me... is this "boring" or "quiet" or both? It's rather subjective, wouldn't you say? It's substantially different from suburban life in most US cities.

As for airport noise, it's certainly a possibility from time to time. _Most_ of the time takeoffs and landings are south to north, and thus, the flyover near you will be landing jets which are pretty quiet. When the wind changes they go the other way and you can expect more noise. There are golf courses all around the airport for a reason, and it really depends how close you are to Laguna National golf course as to how loud the noise will be. Of the 60 or so flights I took in and out of Singapore in my last 18 months of residence, I'd guess that about 15 percent of them were reversed.

I lucked into my place and came to appreciate that it was within walking distance to a small park and a small shopping center that housed restaurants, a food store, butchery, and fish store... self contained, as it were... otherwise you will have to take your car or public transportation to shop for the essentials or to go out and dine.

The '''demonic''' Asian Koal; and how it seems to kick off at 5am. They can really get inside your head.
No wonder they cull them in Pragmaticopore.

JR8 wrote:The '''demonic''' Asian Koal; and how it seems to kick off at 5am. They can really get inside your head.
No wonder they cull them in Pragmaticopore.

I hadn't realized it until I looked up that YouTube vid, and, those birds are a species of cuckoo.

Dear mod...

Didn't you forget about the frogs on rainy nights, or perhaps chanting from the temples. If you've lived in Singapore long enough you'd have mentioned the fellow crying out "karang guni" or perhaps the honk from a bicycle horn letting the neighborhood know "rojak"' is available. Maybe old auntie pounding chili on the mortar upstairs.... Or maybe you've not been born yet in those good old days.

Not such a suaku angmo after all eh? Just looking for more than normal lah.

If you lived in Singapore long enough you would also know there are many very quiet and peaceful areas too.

...just looking around and wanting some opinions from folks who provide meaningful responses.

Besides, it's nothing compared to the nightmare of certain locations in New York City.

angmo wrote:Dear mod...

Didn't you forget about the frogs on rainy nights, or perhaps chanting from the temples. If you've lived in Singapore long enough you'd have mentioned the fellow crying out "karang guni" or perhaps the honk from a bicycle horn letting the neighborhood know "rojak"' is available. Maybe old auntie pounding chili on the mortar upstairs.... Or maybe you've not been born yet in those good old days.

Who are you ???????

Are you an angmo or ... ?????????

I believe our friend is a returning expat who did a former hitch here for 5 years in the mid 1990's as a S/AP Sr. Mgr for a well known US MNC with a large Mfg facility here. So, yeah, he's already got a handle on Singapore, but not in today's noisy Singapore which is a different kettle of fish than the 90's.

OP, I know where you are coming from, but I don't have any good suggestions as I lived in the ulu part of Singapore back then from 1982 to 1999 in Seletar Camp at the end of Jln Kayu. Which wasn't all that far from your offices if I'm not mistaken. I'm in a noisy HDB flat that I own today. Even the camp was noisy with the bird life and the occasional testing of Jet engines out at the airport there.

Strong Eagle wrote:

JR8 wrote:The '''demonic''' Asian Koal; and how it seems to kick off at 5am. They can really get inside your head.
No wonder they cull them in Pragmaticopore.

I hadn't realized it until I looked up that YouTube vid, and, those birds are a species of cuckoo.

Indeed. This coel doesn't have to bother making a nest and raising chicks, so spends all its time looking for a mate. And calling all night. They migrate to Australia in the southern summer, from September to about March. Have now reached as far south as Sydney, driving everyone crazy. At least the kookaburras don't usually start until a couple of hours before dawn.