a new chapter...

sooooooo, on 31st july, we officially took over the new place from the previous owner.

i didn't blog about this before as i was waiting for this to happen...didn't want to jinx anything, superstitious bastard that i am...

in april, we offer and secured the option to purchase a 5 year-old condominium unit near the in-laws (no, it was not because of this reason that we chose it lah!)...and this only after 1 day that we viewed it...had to push it because there was a competing offer. in the end, just because of an insistence by the other potential buyer to get a discount of what amounts to S$2000, they lost out to us.

we did the sums carefully and if we sold our current place for what we believe it's worth, we should be able to get some moolah in hand for the future, and cover a large part of the mortgage that we're taking out for this new place.

must say that we were very taken by this new place, which is why we took the head-first plunge.

• nearer to town by quite a fair bit compared to our current place...more convenient to travel for work for both of us
• 2-bedder but at 1098 sq ft, it's big for such (2 bedders in new developments nowadays typical only run about 800 to 950 sqft)...the extra space would definitely come in handy
• very squarish and usable space
• well taken care of by the tenant (2 taiwanese ladies were renting this from the previous owner and we took over the tenancy)
• 999 year leasehold
  
• and best of all, well within our budget at $592 per sq foot
  

as a comparison, we saw a new 99 year leasehold property being marketed at $765 per sq ft and it was significantly smaller at only 883 sq ft...why pay more and get less??? i really didn't see any compelling reasons to get it new at all.

we are now hoping that the tenants would be able to find an alternative unit so that we can mutually end the tenancy early. met with them yesterday and they actually brought this issue up even before i raised it, so the signs are quite good...i hope.

with a bit of luck, i'll have moved in by december, after doing some minor renovations/improvements...

*fingers crossed*