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03.11.2010 3.30pm
Wednesday, November 03, 2010 10:09 AM Today we will be proud owners of our 1st home! WOOHOOO!! Thou we won't be getting the keys yet since the 2 months extension as requested by the seller starts today, we are still excited! 2 weeks back we went to a few IDs trying to get quotation and is currently waiting for their replies. And it does seems like we have to bust our 50k reno budget. The reno cost totally slip out of our mind when we decided to buy an old EM. :/ Wish the Husband is here with me today to share the joy. But he is currently in Brunei for work and will only be back by Saturday. :( Nevertheless I will have a good date tonight with my dear Ailing Mei! ^^ Have fun looking forward to the long weekend peeps! x Labels: Denne Residence
Wednesday, September 29, 2010 12:04 PM After Siewmai gave birth to 7 cutie little babies, I have been busying making sure the mother is well fed and the babies not being neglected. I think Hargao the Dad feel very neglected and pretty unhappy with me. ><  They are 10 days old today and more furry as compared in the pictures. They are learning to eat small solid food which are broken down by the mother. Siewmai is a fantastic mum and I am very proud of her. ^^ the babies also starting to groom themselves like the adults. SO CUTE! I wonder how they learn it! But Siewmai is still very protective of them. She always keep the babies covered but since the babies gets bigger, they like to roam around the cage. But when she notice the babies walking out from the "zone", she will bite them on the back and carry them back to the nest. Very cute and funny. HEE. HDB 1st Appointment - 22nd Sept The Husband and I took a day leave to service the car in the morning and to HDB in the afternoon. We were expecting to complete everything within 2 hours at HDB but ended up spending more than 3 hours stuck in the lawyer office. We need to go to the lawyer office because we took up a bank loan instead of HDB loan. But the efficiency of the lawyer office is super lousy and the assistant (we only met the actual lawyer for like 3 minutes?!) is super blur and got all calculation wrong and my agent is super pissed off with him. -_- nice. Before we signed the OTP with the owner, we promise to let them extend their stay for another 2 months. But on the day of 1st appointment, they made us signed a handwritten letter stating that if they stay beyond the 2 months, they will pay us a monthly rent of 2.5k. My dad then reminded us that it might be illegal to do so. To be honest, I am not keen with the 2.5k at all. I just wan to get the house like ASAP. I understand that they have yet to find a new place but I really hate to let it drag. Initially I thought we might be able to get the keys by end of this year. But it seems like we can only do so early next year. So depressing. :( My sister got their house later than us but are expecting to collect keys before Xmas. ugh. I have bought alottttt of home deco mag and my uncle have given us quite abit too. And I came across this form in Squareroom where you can fax in with your floorplan and get free quotes from ID company. My warning is.. PLEASE DON'T FAX in! There is nothing call FREE because I have been pestered by this particular ID who have been bombarding me with phone calls and smses and ask me to go down and meet her. LIKE HELLO it stated no obligation right!? Lastly I have been pretty stressed up and busy with my dear sister n my besties' big day. Both falls on the same day! I am very very happy for them but at the same time worried that I can't help them enough. I will still try my best to make sure everything is alright and perfect for them. :) Mid-week today! I can't wait for weekend to come! xx Labels: Denne Residence, dimsum babies
Wednesday, August 18, 2010 4:11 PM Seems like this blog is becoming an outlet for me to update about our new home. But at least I am making the effort to update more often these days. :P I have been refreshing myhdbpage at least 20 times each day EVERY DAY for the past week. Finally I see some updates in the page and informed us on the schedule date of our 1st appointment.  Seeing this is even more excited than seeing a 4-d winning number! HAHAHA! 1 more month + to go! I seriously I can't wait! Labels: Denne Residence
Monday, August 16, 2010 3:38 PM Finally decided to buy the floor plan from hdb website after convincing myself to part with the $5 for a piece of (very important) paper. :P  We have been thinking of hacking quite a numbers of wall. One of the "must go" is the wall between the kitchen and the utility room. OOoooo just by looking at the floor plan I am excited already! ^^ Everyday I will have the urge to visit the house but I can't! Unless I break in when the owners are not around... heh heh heh. Labels: Denne Residence
Friday, August 13, 2010 2:13 PM I believe most of my regular readers here have read about my disappointment of not able to purchase Cityview more than 2 years back. It's not like we are not issued a queue number. Infact I think we can easily pick the best unit we wanted. But at that time we are unable to get the blessing from the adults partially due to the fact that 600k for a HDB with the size slightly over 100sqm is quite insane. (But look at the market now?! 600k is really nothing comparing to the COV that resale owners are asking for these days.) After getting married (rom-ed) for almost 3 years already, I really feel something was missing in this marriage... a place we call our Home. Afterall staying at the in-laws's doesn't mean I have the right to decorate the house the way I wanted. Plus the housechore workload sometimes drives me crazy. I have always wondered how our own home will really look like. Having to stay in HK for 2 years, living in 2 different apartment, I roughly have an idea what kind of house I am looking for. We need SPACE. Especially me who have hell lotsa toy collection. Me think that we are kinda spoilt after staying in the 2nd HK apartment due to it's facilities and amenities nearby. But afterall it's a condo and the developer of the condo is one of the top notch in Hong Kong. Our apartment was just 5-7 mins walk to the Mall & MTR stations. Our unit was just a stone throw away (like literally?!) from the famous Tai Kok Tsui where food can be easily available. But now that we are talking about buying a place of our own where large sum of money is required, we decided that we should go for HDB instead of private when we are still eligible. After discussing about when is the right time to buy our own place, we coincidently met an agent during a gathering at the Husband's ex colleagues's place @ Kim Tian. This agent knock on the door asking for more information regarding the neighbours next door. Turn out that her client bought a unit opposite the ex colleagues and she was trying to find out if there have been loan shark activities nearby. She passed us her name card and left us a pretty deep impression for being meticulous and going an extra mile for her client. A week later we decided to give her, Sally the agent a call and she popped by our place for a discussion. 1 thing we like about her is that she is pretty systematic. She printed out alot of handouts with different budget base on our salary and also researched on past transaction of the area we are interested in. Our initial target was Eunos, Kembangan, Bedok, Tampines, Tiong Bahru and Bendemeer. Eunos, Kembangan & Bedok is because it's near to the in laws. Tampines because the agent highly recommended the area. Tiong Bahru is because we like the environment in Kim Tian and Bendemeer is of course because it's near my parents. But after much discussion, its either some areas are too expensive or not exactly a pleasant area for young couple with expanding family. We changed our target again. This time we specifically asked to view flats in Serangoon. I have always liked Serangoon (Central, no North pls) because I find the area peaceful and family friendly. Plus the upcoming NEX Mall is a bonus! [24th July 2010] Met Sally @ the void deck of one of the unit we planning to view. We are supposed to view 4 units on that day. [1st unit - 5 room flat] Located on the lift landing top floor. It's a door to door unit. Reccess area can be bought over if interested. The view is blocked for all windows but pretty windy due to it's height. My mum didn't like it because she says that top floor will feel warm and noisy due to the water tank. But my dad had a great time chatting with the male owner. Apparently they bought a unit in Cityview therefore selling their current flat. NEXT! [2nd unit - 5 room flat] Located 1 floor below the lift landing iirc. It's another door to door unit. Pretty good condition and seems like owner spent quite abit on reno before. Sister and her bf also interested in the unit. Plus point of the flat is that it's just directly opposite NEX Mall. Just across the road! Was thinking of KIV but Mum (again!) saw something suspicious on the Altar which I won't go into details too. Dad said that the house gave him a creepy and uncomfty feeling. Okay... >< NEXT! [3rd unit - 4 room flat] The windiest unit we viewed that day but also the one with the oddest shape. Not interested at all. NEXT! [4th unit - 4 room flat] AIYOOOOO... Although their asking price is low, it looks exactly like those you saw on TV, family asking for donation kind of unit. Don't have good feelings of the unit too... We were pretty disappointed because we thought we will see something that gives us a MUST buy feel. The Husband and I are pretty implusive when it comes to buying things but it also not easily to find something that we really like. And if we do, we will try to find ways to get it. After viewing the 4th unit, Sally told us that she arranged for her next client to view an EM (Executive Maisonette) @ Serangoon Ave 2. Since I didn't really have any idea how an EM really looks like, we agree to go take a peek at the unit. Who knows that we will fall in love with it almost immediately... Among all the units we viewed that day, the void deck of the EM block is the cleanest and most peaceful. There is a bus stop (with bus 133!!) right under the block. NEX Mall (& Serangoon MRT station) is about 5-7 minutes walk away. The unit is located on the 8th floor. Living room view is the open field of Nanyang Junior College and also some far away condo views. Very beautiful at night! On the 1st floor, there is a open balcony, a small study room, pretty decent size kitchen, 2 living rooms and a small storeroom under the stairways. On the 2nd floor, there is a masterbed room (with attached toilet), 2 guests room and 1 common toilet. A total of 3 toilets! What I like most about the house is it's not surrounded by other flats therefore the good view and strong wind. Never in my whole life I will dream about staying in an EM. But after viewing this unit, I couldn't stop thinking about how perfect it will be as our 1st home! We got Sally to calculate the amount we need to pay if we are interested in the unit. As the valuation report is not out yet, we are unsure if it's advisable to offer base on the valuation report from the neighbours. Who knows it may be lower?! Everyone love the house despite how original condition it is in. To be honest no matter where we buy, we will prefer to overhaul the house instead. And so that night, I couldn't sleep because I love the house sooooo much and I am worried that someone might have offered and got the house 1st. The next day, the Husband and I went back to the block at night to look around the neighbour hood. We walk from the block to NEX Mall and was very amazed by how close they are to each other. (Not throw stone away but still near la!) But half way while walking from from NEX Mall to our car, it suddenly started to rain, no, POURRRR without warning! It was fun holding each other's hands and running for our lives under the rain. :P So romantic! After the weekends, we or rather I had a hard time concentrating at work because I couldn't keep my mind off the unit. We have been pestering Sally and wanna know if the unit is sold already or not. Part of me wanna view more units but I know it's not easy to find a place that you know you will be god damn happy staying in it. [30th July 2010] Viewed an EM @ Lengkong Tiga. The area is SOOOOOOOO quiet. Too quiet for comfort. Plus their asking is so high! >< Perhaps it's because the area is surrounded by private houses. My mind is still filled with the Serangoon unit. [31st July 2010] Came the next Saturday, we had a 2nd viewing of the house. We were surprise that the valuation price came out lower than what we expected. It should be a good news to us but in the end we were shocked that the seller set their cov at $80k! No matter how much we love the flat, $80k is tooooo much for a unit with sucha original condition. We forsee that renovation will cost us a bomb so we are trying to save up for reno cost. We offered a price we are comfortable with and left the owners to consider the deal. At night, Sally called and say that our offer is too little as someone offered the same amount as us and was rejected flat by the seller. We thought thru hard that night and increased our budget to something slightly higher. [1st August 2010] We went back to the house the next day and try to negotiate the COV with the seller. They were pretty stringent about the price and were expecting us to top up a 10K above our offered price. But anything above our offered price we find it hard to fork out. I was on the verge of giving up and bursting into tear when Sally told us that maybe we should just meet half way by offering them additonal 1k to close the deal. So I told the Husband, if this still doesn't work, we will just give up. We were sitted in the dinning area while the sellers are discussing in the corridor with the agents. After a good 5 minutes, Sally walked in... And she said the seller is willing to close the offer! Not with the additional 1k! They are willing to close at our offer price! I was sooooo happy that I almost teared! :`) I am not sure how our agent convinced the seller but I am more than thankful for her effort! Maybe the sellers can tell how much I love their house! :P Signed the documents, gave them a cheque of 1k as deposit, booked the unit! Woohoo! At that time, our HLE have yet to be approved so were still thinking if we should get bank loan instead. We seek advise from my FIL who have been working in the bank for all his life (hahaha!), he suggest that we should go for bank loan for it's low rates now. But I was struggling with the decision because I am not a risk taker.. thou the interest is pretty attractive now(1.88% for 2 years) no one will know what is gonna happen 2 years down the road. Then again, I am no expert when it comes to loan so we decided to go ahead with bank loan. For the past few days, I have been busy gathering all important documents, contact the bankers, submitting the documents and finally getting an approval from UOB. UOB have amazing service! We sent in our application in the day and gets an approval at night! We took time off and popby HDB HUB yesterday to sign the bank loan documents @ the UOB office. There are sooooo many documents to sign that my signature went haywire. -_- I can't wait for the 1st appointment to come in mid September! Thou I know we will only be able to get the keys by end of the year (the seller request to extend their stay for another 2 months), I can't wait to finalise the purchase and call this place as our own! ^^  Picture courtesy from http://www.h88.com.sg Sorry for the verbal diarrhea. And pardon me for any typo! :P xx Labels: Denne Residence
Tuesday, August 10, 2010 8:07 PM When the Husband and I were still in Hong Kong, we have been dreaming about the things we wanna buy if we get the chance to return Singapore. House & Car tops our priority. One very fine afternoon after having a family lunch, I suggested all of us to pop by some car showroom for some window shopping. I have always like big cars like Toyota Harrier, Estima. Small cars like Jazz/Fit is pretty cute too but we find them too small due to the Husband's height. Our first stop was Borneo Motor and was pretty blown away by the new Camry & Rav4. I love the RAV4 because of it's size and it's sporty outlook while the Hubby likes the Camry for it's classy touch. But both was over budget. :P After looking at RAV4, we suddenly recall that it has a smaller Brother call the RUSH. And so we hopped over to UBI where all the PI car dealers are. We entered the very 1st store and set our eyes on the RUSH that was on display in the showroom. Little did we know that we will skip out of the store as happy car owners. ^^ I think this is the perfect car for us because it suits our lifestyle perfectly. It has potential to be "zhng" into a pretty cool car! :P Just gave the baby a good shower the other day so decided to take some pictures of it while it's still sparkling clean. HEE.   Now that we have bought our dream car, and recently our dream house too, I can die a very happy person now! <3 Labels: Denne KAH, Denne Residence
Tuesday, August 03, 2010 4:24 PM Like finally! We finally bought our house, a dream house!!! *beaming with joy* Labels: Denne Residence, housing, marriage
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