Singapore Expats

Hello! This is our first post… so I’m sure many of our questions have been asked already on the forum.

We are relocating from Houston TX. to Singapore in July, and like many Housing and costs are at the top of our concerns. The main issues we are tiring to figure out are:

1. Should we bring all our furniture?? It looks like most of the listings for condos, apartments and conversion shophouses are full furnished are partially furnished. I have found very few unfurnished listing online. Our package includes full relocation… but I would hate to bring it all and then need to store it.. ouch! We have a 1500 sqft, 3 bedroom house in the US.

2. Temp Housing… we plan on staying about a month in temp housing while we look for a perm place. We would like to avoid paying S$7500 a month for temp… any suggestions.

Thanks in advance… this forum has already given us a ton of good info!

Ezy

1. most property are fully furnished but you can get the odd ones that are partly furnished. your estate agent should be able to search for you.

2. temp housing is expensive as most landlord would want to sign a minimum 1 year tenancy contract. your option could be Service Apartments.

Thanks durain….

Yes we are kind of thinking the same as to a Service Apartment… but everything I’m seeing is $6000 or $7000 per month. Would be nice to find something a little cheaper for the first month.


My dilemma with the furniture is, if we decide to ship it, it needs to go before we leave the Texas.. we would hate to get there and learn we just can’t find a unfurnished place that works.. then I’m stuck with all the stuff we shipped and no room.

.

[quote="durain"]1. most property are fully furnished but you can get the odd ones that are partly furnished. your estate agent should be able to search for you.

Did you mean to say most temporary housing (serviced apts) are fully furnished? Because most rental apts are not fully furnished and unlike the US where "partly furnished" means furniture - here in asia partly furnished means white goods like washer, dryer, refrigerator...etc.

Also, most international moving firms will store your furniture for at least 30 days. Once they pack your furniture they crate it - then it goes on the ship. They can base the arrival for when you arrive - or somewhere thereabouts. You also have to allow for the goods to pass through customs here which can take a couple of days or longer (week or two) depending on time of year.

Remember that the voltage is different for appliances - so do a search on this forum to get more info about what to bring and what to leave. Things like blenders, toasters, irons, hairdryers, microwaves...etc. are relatively inexpensive and you can also buy from who are moving back.

Thanks! that is what I was trying to workout... there seems to be about as many partly furnished as furnished ... but few unfurnished.

How flexible are the furnished ones? That's to say, are most landlords willing to take stuff out if we have our own and really like the place? And may lower the price? I hate the idea of paying for furniture if our company will ship everything.

As for the appliances.. or just about anything we have that is 110v is going at the garage sale. Except my TV... even if I need to store that.

If I can work it out... without paying $7500+ per month for a Service Apartment, we hoped to get in country and spend a month looking at places in person.

i would say most Service Apartments will be fully furnished. long term apartment can be furnished or unfurnished. so the choice is up to the tenant for either ones.

If your company is willing to pay for your relocation bring your own stuff out, there are plenty of partially furnished, which really means unfurnished, when you read unfurnished, in some case it means no kitchen or bathroom cabinets or appliances.

Having all your own stuff makes you settle in quicker. Once you get here you can ebay stuff that you find unsuitable.

Service apartments are flexible on your furniture requirements. We stayed at the treetops Service Apartments. A few of the residents live there full time.

As to furnished apartment, I don’t know what your taste is like but lets just say, landlords don’t exactly go to town on the furniture budget in rental places and the stuff they tend to choose is based more on local taste, which would be really depressing coming into to house full of really crap stuff, rather have an empty place and just a bed.

Hi BigEasy,

We moved to Singapore 2yrs ago from Melbourne, went through the exact thoughts that you are having now. Try to convince your employer to pay for relocation costs & temp housing for first 2-4 weeks. It worked for us!

With relocation costs paid for, we shipped all the essential things. The first place we lived in REFUSED to remove the 'furnitures' so I had to live with somethings doubled up or stored away (most condo will have a store room) I am from a humble upbringing but I find the furnitures in many of the rental apartments are of poor taste & complicated. I would need to write an essay on this topic. So be warned.

You can definately request for furnitures to be removed, but be prepared to take a stand on this because many owners will decline since they can justify charging extra $$/month. The charges do not equate to the quality or quantity of furnishing.

Staying in a Serviced Apartment is a great idea for newcomers because it allows you to see different parts of Singapore and 'test out' the districts (ie. transport, eating places, supermarkets etc) before deciding where & what to rent. It will also allow time for your belongings to arrive to Singapore. However, its really expensive. So beg your employer (if necessary) to have this paid for.

I hope this helps...

Thanks to all for the tips and advice. It is all very helpful and this thread has given us some very good information. Both the Forum and people here are great!

As for the company paid temp housing… yes..we will ask for more assistance… but as for the contract terms… well let’s just say there are other things that are given, and play as an offset to my paying for the first few weeks.

Based on what I’ve learned here… I think we will bring the furniture… or at least the stuff we really want to have of higher quality. QRM is right… would be depressing to be in a nice place with crappy furniture, while paying to have the good stuff stored here in the US.

you will get a much better feel of singapore, the location and apartment you want to stay in once you are in singapore.

Bigeasy - we bought our furniture because we have (what we think) is a lot of funky modern Italian, some art-deco, some Asian antiques. Sold fridge, washing machine, dryer went to one of our rental properties.

Use it as an opportunity to upgrade - we upgraded TV, got a new bed, piffed the old home office stuff, and remember, eBay is your friend - we got on avaergae 45% of what we paid for such items.

HTH, P

Hi everyone and thanks in advance for any advice, I truly appreciate any help. We will be relocating to Singapore early 2013. We have to decide what to ship before we go house (or condo) -hunting. We'll be looking for partially furnished housing/condo's and plan on using as much of our own furniture as possible. We're coming from the US and notice that Singapore tends to have built-in closets in the bedrooms. Therefore, should I bring our bedroom drawers and dressers or will they not be needed? Also, should I bring our TV Entertainment Center (its about 8' x 6') or do Singapore houses/condo's usually have built-in TV areas? I'm not familiar enough with what kind of storage is usually built into homes in Singapore.

Lloyd

Ooh, it's a bit of a subjective question.

Are you getting unlimited freight? Put another way: How much would it be for you to say ship a sofa in your freight, versus to buy one from perhaps Ikea or Courts that will last a few years perfectly well, i.e. long enough. In my experience even if you're in a post-Ikea stage of life, they still have some very good products if you seek carefully and select judiciously.

First time I rented fully furnished. Second time totally unfurnished. The latter we had some key pieces of our own furniture (mostly antiques), the rest was Ikea which went to the Salvation Army at leaving time.

How about looking through some property ads on this site and seeing what is available (furnished versus unfurnished) in your price range?

p.s. remember that the UV from the ambient light might wreck more delicate things, especially textiles. So valuable pictures should be hung in darker corners, and heirloom pieces of furniture situated well away from windows.

p.s. Oh, and welcome to the forum by the way!

Thanks JR8. Yes we have unlimited freight coming in to Singapore. Our price range is around S$10K-12K/month. We're bringing the kids bunk-beds (7' x 4' x 7' high). Will there be enough room in the kids bedrooms for dressers? or do you think the condo's / landed houses in Singaporean homes will be too small to bring additional kids bedroom furniture? Also, how common is it for kids bedrooms to have closet space? property websites don't say much about the size of rooms.

Storage and space vary a fair bit from property to property , but for $10K - 12K per month, you should be able to get somewhere that has what you need in terms of space. 2nd bedrooms often have closet space built in and if they are sharing a bunk bed, you should also fit a dresser. (I wouldn't bring much more kids furniture than that).

Typically, there is more space if you can find an older place (ie 10-15 years old) as the newer places are smaller.

If you're looking for partially furnished, almost all places have whitegoods, so I'd suggest that you don't need a washer/dryer, fridge or microwave. If you find a place with more furniture than you need, landlords will sometimes remove it. (I assume your company is providing a relocation agent if they are giving unlimited freight. Just have the agent ask the landlord).

The TV cabinet is really hard to say- it depends what the landlord already has in the place. TV areas are typically not built in, but the landlord might provide a cabinet. You could always leave it at home and as JR8 suggested, get an IKEA one if needed.

There are also loads of threads about schools on here if you are looking for somewhere for your kids. (Maybe check out Singapore American School - it has a good name and I note you're coming from the US).

All the best for the move!