Verglas Blog: Our Story - Home Sweet Home

I hadnt pen down in writings how we got our 1st home :D It was an unplanned one, very impromptu. Unlike most couples who sit down and plan their future together, we were not even talking about getting married or getting a house yet. If there were any hints dropped *GIRLSS LISTEN UP!! Tips to getting your DIAMOND RING!!**, it was just a mere finger baring..

Tip #1
If your guy casually asks you to..............

*hang on*

what were you thinking?? S??? ;p

1) Wash his plates after dinner;
2) Wash his underwear while u are on a trip together;
3) Pour him a glass of water;
4) Be a sweetie pot pie girlfriend and cook for him;
5) etc etc

Show him your 10 BARE fingers!!! Who is he to demand all these even before you rightfully belong to him??! :D

IT WORKS!! :D

So that's about all I did...innocent playful stunt :) And I still dont do the above after getting my ring la :D

And, I knew his finances well enough to know tt a ring wouldnt come so soon then...

The worst that any woman can expect to happen, is to fall into the 'Singaporean Marriage Trap'. That of borrowing her IC to bid for a flat -.- *yawnsss* boring... even before he proposes.

A normal BTO takes about 5 years to build. And with the overwhelming demand for each launch, not all bidders get to buy a flat during their 1st few bids..

How about this for some stats: The 188 four—room units in Limbang Green received nearly 2,700 applications, and 458 units in Buangkok Vale received 2608 applications — six times more than units available. - source: yahoo news

So in name of practicality, most couples will have to bid for a flat 5 years or more before their desired wedding date. And at that point in life, most guys probably wouldnt have the $$ to get a decent ring...so most women end up signing the deed of their finances AND life to the house and the man respectively.. and when u get to that stage, the proposal just become an expected event that is going to happen soon.. and you just got to settle for whatever is the stone size available when it happens.. Already bought a house, you think u still can say no meh?! Proposals become unromantic and perhaps sloppy... :( this is the 'singapore marriage trap'...

Alternatively, u can seek resale flats and pay the ridiculously exhorbitant S$40k for the COV in COLD HARD CASH now. and they are not even brand new..

I must say, for my case, it is entirely similar yet different from the Marriage Trap.. cos mine was totally unplanned! yet it is so similar cos I got my ring much later...

Remember I had a caver-ful of newly proposed girls? I stole a tip or two on house buying from them while sitting in office almost 24-7 a week with these lovely noise makers. And I did casually ask my cousin the procedure in getting a flat cos I figured I have to know it one day. But all casual. No talks about wedding yet.

And all I know, from then and till now, about flat buying are these:
1) Sign up at HDB website for mailers on new launches
2) Pay S$10 to bid for each BTO

The ONLY time N&I ever talked about getting a flat, was when he sent me an sms like this one morning:
"Punggol got build to order. I apply for fun?" - sent by Nigel on 8 April 2009 10:56am

I said ok and he went ahead to pay S$10 for the bidding. nothing happened thereafter. and we also didnt talk about it.

...2 weeks later...
On 15 April (Wed), cousin got an email from Sim Lian about their Parc Lumiere launch the following tuesday (21 Apr). But they were going to hold a showflat openhouse for public viewing from 18 April (Sat). Apparently, she signed up with Sim Lian mailing list cos she was interested in getting a flat from them.

Being the nice cousin she is, she told me about it. And I told N about it. We decided to go and take a look over the weekend. For fun.

On that friday, I suddenly got a call from cousin early in the morning. Her parents-in-law drove past the area and found people already queuing up!! And they heard that Sim Lian might open up the sales booth if the response is overwhelming!!

N&I briefly discussed and agreed that this was going to be OUR flat :) the timing was simply perfect!

Several callssssss and smsessssss were exchanged between me, cousin, mum, dad, nigel, nigel's mum, nigel's dad, cousin's parents-in-law.

AND...

Thankful we got cousin's parents-in-law to get us a queue number! They were already there to queue for my cousin and her hubby before we decided to take a queue number too! It took us 16 couple queuers' timing to make that decision. They were #18 and we were #33 :D We might even have made it to the news on TV cos we were seated right in front.

With that, both our mums and dads were already making some arrangements and on their way to take over our queue and to participate in our 1st house buying experience :)

Within that morning, we had to get our 15 months of CPF contributions, past 12 months' pay slips from the HR/finance (all must be stamped certified true copy) and photocopy our IC. All these take a lot of time especially if u r working in a big organisation like mine. So I got mine some time after lunch...

I left the office around mid afternoon after surprising everybody tt I just made an impromptu decision to go and queue for my flat :D

Twas a long wait.. an overnight one...

luckily we had an army of people who came down with us :) most of our family members came down to witness this sacred moment with us :) :) the Miyashitas also came down to share this special moment with us.. :) :) All thanks to these great people for taking time off and making an effort for us, we feel very very blessed :)

But it got late and we told them to go back, leaving cuz, cuz-in-law, me and N to spend the loooong night together.

We had much to do that night. Plowing thru the catalog and the prices for each individual unit and then working out our finances and choosing our top 30 units. Cousin and I tried to make our 1st few choices as near to each other as possible :D

Some snapshots of our showflat..

The view from our unit :) no blockage, cos all private houses! Paid a bit more for this view, but we worked within our budget.. here's where some maths come into play. Who say my maths doesnt make sense???