Day 20: House Hunting

Before I sounded my father out about his willingness to shift with us, the guys (Andy & Mr Liow) had already made an appointment with an agent to see a clusterhouse in the afternoon today. Since the appointment had been made, we went ahead with house viewing despite chances of shifting being almost zero now. We can't afford to get a cluster house on our own without having to sacrifice a comfortable spending pattern we have always enjoyed, plus we certainly do not need a 4 storey terrace with 5 rooms for our family of 2 with 2 young kids. Cleaning alone is going to kill me. Bro will not be able to share half the cost with us as well if our father isn't willing to sell the flat either.

Still, house viewing is gratifying. Each time we step into a showflat, we get all excited and start counting how much we can afford to squeeze ourselves (till dry), to get a beautiful apartment with that sort of facilities and tenure (if we seriously are thinking of profitting from future sale).

We saw The Waterline at Serangoon (or Kovan. Can't remember coz we just so happened noticed the showflat while driving around. The agent stood us up for the 1pm appointment.). They were showing their larger unit and boy was it impressive! It got even my brother interested even without funds at that point. Agent says for FH properties, $1000 psf is a steal. Plus it's soft launch now and there are additional discounts for staying within a 3km radius and another 1% less for multiple purchase, there is a total of 12% off which makes the prices even more desirable for a FH property.

But that makes the unit we were drooling over, at least $2M!! Mr Liow is entertaining thoughts of getting a unit about about as big as our HDB now, and that's still slightly over $1.2M. Waterline TOP in 2013 so we can sell our HDB by then and take a (slightly) lower loan.

To me, if my HDB is as tastefully interior decorated as a showflat, I'm more than contented. Hehe. Some of those units come with private pools. How cool is that?? But still, good to have but not something we can't do without.

We left for another viewing, something we originally set out for. We had no appointment for this second unit but managed to find an agent to bring us in. This is $433 psf! *drools at price* and I've not mentioned it's also FH! The pool is right outside beyond the balcony and we could unlatch a door to jump right into it! Again, how cool!!

It's a total of 44xx sft for 3 level + basement so each usable area is effectively smaller than the 2xxx sft Waterline showflat we saw earlier. Plus the original fittings of this terrace house wasn't impressive and workmanship in putting everything together wad shobbily done...

One can expect a budget of another $100k at least, to have it madeover to the standard of Waterline showflat. This still ends up cheaper than Waterline after factoring in the Reno for double the floor area.

But rooms are so small...something I do not like. If we have to shift, I want to have bigger rooms in future. There's too much 'wasted' space in this house (part of the flr area goes to the 'private parking' for 2 cars)

The guys went ahead with the calculation while mum and I watched over AN. This girl happily went declaring to my mum that these were our houses. One of the rooms in wateline was covered in a similar carpet to our ST home in Tucson and she excitedly exclaimed smiling so widely that "this is the carpet we have at home right?" She then started distributing room and said her little brother will sleep in the same room as her (on carpet) till he's old enough to have his own room.

And at the second house with a door that opens to the pool from the balcony, she kept pleading to go swimming...

This girl was totally being very interested. But sorry, my girl, maybe we can afford these standard of living in a few more years, after you grow up.

That was our day. I had fun fantasizing.

But towards end of the day, Mr Liow got an SMS from CJ and it was bad news. His mum passed away. I have no details but I think Mr Liow mentioned that she stopped breathing and the doctor was on the way.

Mr Liow was shaken. The guys used to visit CJ's home often as teenagers and you can say CJ's mum watched them grow up. I joined them after Mr Liow and I started dating. She saw me as a stranger visiting along with Mr Liow, then we got married, and she even carried AN that CHinese New Year before we left Tucson. She had already recovered from cancer then but the evil things came back. We didn't even know she was very ill in the past year till the guys met up 2 weeks ago.

I'm tearing now as I type. All those memories of her during our visits, and her cooking. No matter when we drop by her place, there's always food for us. And she is such a good home manager I never recalled seeing domestic help. Usually there will be help when one stays in a terrace like them. I know I will cry for help if I was her.

We've not had the chance to visit her yet. My memories of her remain at when she was still healthy. CJ mentioned that she was constantly in great pain. This is probably a relief.

I think she's safely with the Lord now. It will be hard for the family from now on, but she is now safe from the pain. Praying that the Lord will comfort the family through this time of separation but we'll see her again.