Singapore Expats

We are debating whether or not to bring furniture. We will get a full shipment from my company so shipping cost isn’t an issue. The Issue is that we will not get a chance to do any home hunting before we move. Some of our furniture is large ie. king size bed, sectional sofa etc.
I see a lot of furnished or partially furnished condos and apartments but the pictures don’t show anything. The same pictures are posted for every listing in a complex.
Are there decent furnished apartments available? Is nice rental furniture available at a reasonable price?
I have searched furniture rental companies and don’t see any willing to post prices on line. That tells me that I don’t want to do business with them. Our housing allowance wont be huge so we need to stay within a budget.
I will greatly appreciate your help and advice.

It depends.
1. What do you mean by 'decent' furniture.
2. What kind of furniture do you have right now.

Most of the apartments do have reasonable furniture, yet not very nice, depending on the taste. Usually it is modern-cheap-fake-expensive kind of style. I mean leather-like set in the living room paired with a glass top table, metal bed frame with fake-gold finishings etc. Disgusting and not acceptable in my opinion, if I were to buy it myself, but in the lower edge of acceptance fro rental.
I would be careful with wooden furniture brought from overseas, as we got terrible experience with various small stuff to be damaged by fungus and other 'unforseen' circumstances here. Things from less humid areas seems to be extra fragile to it.

Agree with gravida. I would bring your own things with the exception of the king-sized bed and the sectional sofa (and any other over-sized pieces). The furnishings provided here as part of a 'furnished' rental are atrocious. There are however a full range of furniture stores, including some relatively cheap reproductions. There are a few rental places in town as well. Singaporean websites are woefully lacking. Try checking out the ridiculousness of the real estate websites... pure crap. Anyway, with regard to mold ~ yes it's true, you just have to stay on top of it.

Calmday wrote: I see a lot of furnished or partially furnished condos and apartments but the pictures don’t show anything.

Partial furnished could mean just white goods only and fully furnished mean a 15 year old TV and some wicker seating.

Calmday wrote:The same pictures are posted for every listing in a complex.

The Agents that post these Ads on the various rental portals don't actually have these apartments on their books and are just spamming these websites to reel you in. I would avoid these agents/apartments like the plague and only enquire about apartments where there are obvious genuine inside photos.

My two bobs worth - be careful of any antiquities made of metal or wood, and also anything with leather. The humidity will try it's best to not only make your life miserable, but could well destroy that lovely Tibetan Prayer Book, or the dining room leather chair I am presently occupying.

road.not.taken - why would you say to leave the king sized bed at home?
(I assume this is the American "King size" aka Superking size bed in the UK
- the 6 foot wide one!)

I was planning to bring mine when we move this summer so I'd love to know why you don't recommend bringing it.

KindClare wrote:road.not.taken - why would you say to leave the king sized bed at home?
(I assume this is the American "King size" aka Superking size bed in the UK
- the 6 foot wide one!)

I was planning to bring mine when we move this summer so I'd love to know why you don't recommend bringing it.

It all depends on what kind of place you intend to stay in, but if you plan to stay in a condo you will struggle to find one with a bedroom big enough.

KindClare wrote:road.not.taken - why would you say to leave the king sized bed at home?
(I assume this is the American "King size" aka Superking size bed in the UK
- the 6 foot wide one!)

I was planning to bring mine when we move this summer so I'd love to know why you don't recommend bringing it.

I have lived here a very long time and looked at 100 places or more (and have lived in 6). Most places are simply too small for a king-sized bed (unless you are in the $15K/month plus bracket). Even then it will hamper your search considerably. I would leave it at home and buy a smaller bed here with a Singaporean-sized mattress so you can get sheets, etc. to fit it*

*unless you have a thing for nice linens, like I do in which case you buy them overseas

I would bring absolutely everything you can… Then replace as and when appropriate… Our viewings agreed with the above that the provided furniture is shocking, so we asked for sofa and beds to be removed… RE king-size bed, definitely bring in my opinion, 20CM shorter beds here are a pain in the shins as you have to stick your legs out the end (and I’m not even tall)…

I even wished I had filled my container up with more stuff – would have crammed it to the roof if I had known, buy everything for my newborn, cot, buggy, changer, everything possible – kicking myself now as we had to buy it all here… Singapore is not as cheap as it once was… Mothercare as a random example is triple UK prices…

Be sure to check with the landlord 'before' you bring all your furniture over. A lot of landlords do not have storage facilities so the furnished furniture may well have to stay in the unit which could be a real pain in the butt because you cannot dispose of it. Of course you could put it into storage and pay the storage costs yourself.

Thanks for all of the reply’s.
Every single bit of the baby stuff is coming. We got burnt on that last assignment.
We most likely will bring a couple of queen size beds and leave the king at home. I guess that we will bring all of the living room furniture. If a land lord isn’t able to get rid of existing furniture we will just keep looking.

Question - who pays for the stuff to be shipped back home? You or the company?

carteki wrote:Question - who pays for the stuff to be shipped back home? You or the company?

Company pays for unlimited shipping both ways.

Calmday wrote:

carteki wrote:Question - who pays for the stuff to be shipped back home? You or the company?

Company pays for unlimited shipping both ways.

What is more important is the fact your furniture may not be up to the weather conditions out here, termites have wonderful holidays, visiting expat furniture, though i do guess it depends if SMS is fully armed and on top of the job Wood is cured and treated differently in accordance with regulations, so bringing your furniture maybe a quick snack out here for the invaders

It might to be quite hard to find an unfurnished or partially furnished place for rental. Having been bound to one area, our agent only managed to come up with a single partially furnished condo (means no couch, but everything else). All the the other places were fully furnished.

About the mold issued, you could let the aircon run more often, it reduced the humidity a little, but the electricity bill might be then in the 300S$ range.