Singapore Expats

The Singaporean's are "oh you'll be rich" but the reality is that the premium paid (~25 to 35%) is not worth the issues it will cause. For other PR's these are the issues I have uncovered:

ABSD - I didn't pay ABSD when I bought and now I will have to when I repurchase.

You can't buy right away as you need to wait for settlement which is a year out... so for a year you have uncertainty in a what looks to be a rising market.

I can't (most likely) get another bank loan (or at least an attractive one with long term - at 55 I'll be lucky to get a 10 year loan) so I'll be forced to pay cash which is painful and restricts my choices and/or take a mortgage with extremely high payments (6k instead of 3k for example).

I don't want to downgrade to HDB as HDB is NOT an asset that appreciates (and Sinkaporeans are waking up to this - even their own gahmen admitted it).

There may be tax issues for me from the ATO. My wife will have IRAS tax issues if we use her name for the next place to avoid ABSD (she's USA citizen).

The location we are in is hard to buy in again. Yet it's an ideal location near my son and my daughter's schools.

I have a large (1500ft2) place. They barely exist now.

Timing. I was planning on selling at some point - but now I'll have a four year new wait on SSD.

CPF. The timing again is crap. The CPF board will grab my housing monies to repay CPF and I will turn 55 in the process which means I cannot use CPF again for the next purchase as my OA will become RA. That's 200k of purchasing power gone.

50k renovation 7 years ago wasted.

It goes on. The whole enbloc has been highly contentious and emotional and broken friendships and brought calamity upon our heads. While they got 81% they forget that means a shit load of people don't want it.

I am guessing you voted down the enbloc?

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Damn that sucks. I just purchased an older condo in Tanglin and wondered what the implications are...now I know...

Wishing you the best in dealing with the outcome...


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I wouldn't be surprised if a few of those 81% required a wee bit of persuasion so to speak. All is fair in love and the property market.

Have a a bit of a root around; odds are it may no longer be such a given.

Max Headroom wrote:I wouldn't be surprised if a few of those 81% required a wee bit of persuasion so to speak. All is fair in love and the property market.

Have a a bit of a root around; odds are it may no longer be such a given.

Oh there were all sorts of shennanigans (lying to an older lady that she would be fined if she didn't vote yes was the worse, the AGM for the condo had a heavily inflated 'repaid and maintenance budget' of $1.8MM to try to convince no voters). However if 5 days have passed then the cooling off period is past and the vote cannot be changed.

Wd40 wrote:I am guessing you voted down the enbloc?

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You don't vote no - you just don't vote yes. (You're essentially signing a sales agreement when you vote).

BBCDoc wrote:Damn that sucks. I just purchased an older condo in Tanglin and wondered what the implications are...now I know...

Wishing you the best in dealing with the outcome...


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Yes. What triggered ours was a guy who has done 5 enblocs moved in and over the last 4 years has worked on getting this done. This is all he does - enbloc sales for a living.

There are only two grounds in law for opposing this at the STB or HC. A financial loss or if the CSC acted in bad faith (i.e. corruptly).

PNGMK wrote: There are only two grounds in law for opposing this at the STB or HC. A financial loss or if the CSC acted in bad faith (i.e. corruptly).

With this: "Lying to an older lady that she would be fined if she didn't vote yes" there appears to be scope for that second one, no?

Max Headroom wrote:

PNGMK wrote: There are only two grounds in law for opposing this at the STB or HC. A financial loss or if the CSC acted in bad faith (i.e. corruptly).

With this: "Lying to an older lady that she would be fined if she didn't vote yes" there appears to be scope for that second one, no?

Yes but proving it (hearsay and an old lady who doesn't want to rock the boat) may be a different thing. The current hope is that the tender/bid exercise fails to scurry up a decent bid. Tender closes in a few weeks.

Ah. Good luck then.

IT looks like the lazy journo's of Singapore are at it again:

https://www.icompareloan.com/resources/ ... ium-owner/

And then ported to Singapore Yahoo Finance.

PNGMK wrote:IT looks like the lazy journo's of Singapore are at it again:

https://www.icompareloan.com/resources/ ... ium-owner/

And then ported to Singapore Yahoo Finance.

They are certainly 100 percent in agreement with you... and as typical Singaporeans, will take no stand on the issues.

Strong Eagle wrote:

PNGMK wrote:IT looks like the lazy journo's of Singapore are at it again:

https://www.icompareloan.com/resources/ ... ium-owner/

And then ported to Singapore Yahoo Finance.

They are certainly 100 percent in agreement with you... and as typical Singaporeans, will take no stand on the issues.

The comments section are 50% "fuk you FT" and 50% "we are also having issues with enbloc". But yeah no one will do anything. If you want to see how bad it gets this blog is interestign:

http://www.tampinescourt.net/

Hi my condo is also undergoing enbloc and we face the same issue as foreign owners who have to pay hefty ABSD now when we didn't have to pay in the past.

At least for your case, you can definitely use your wife's name. The tax that she needs to pay is only property tax every year.

As for your loan, I believe you can stretch it up to 20 years.

One silver lining is that the price appreciation for older condo is definitely less compared to newer condos.

I went for this to decide for my case
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swanlu wrote:Hi my condo is also undergoing enbloc and we face the same issue as foreign owners who have to pay hefty ABSD now when we didn't have to pay in the past.

At least for your case, you can definitely use your wife's name. The tax that she needs to pay is only property tax every year.

As for your loan, I believe you can stretch it up to 20 years.

One silver lining is that the price appreciation for older condo is definitely less compared to newer condos.

I went for this to decide for my case
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You're using my issue to push your bloody seminar? Go to hell.