Condo with large bedrooms

[sarkarp]

Hi

We'll shortly move to Singapore from USA. We'll need a 3 bedroom house with at least two large bedrooms (at least 200 sq. ft., preferably the master to be about 250 sq. ft); I don't mind small third bedroom. Unlike in US the Singapore property search sites usually don't provide sizes of rooms - they just show pictures of the property. So can you please let me know names of a few condominiums/cluster house that have large bedrooms. I'm open to almost any locations withing Singapore and the maximum budget is $5000 per month.

My second question: We'll live in a hotel/service apartment temporarily for a month after relocating. So we'll have some time to look around to find an apartment. Do they have most of the properties listed on the property search websites or will it be better to go through the classifieds in local newspaper to find a better deal? Do you have any other recommendation to get a better deal on prices?

[nutnut]

Hi, Congrats on the move, hope all goes well.

I will say that typically the room sizes is normally related closely to the age of the property, this is similar in Western Europe too, the older the apartment, the larger the rooms are.

Cluster houses are bigger than condo's for room size, I know a couple of Americans who are used to the larger properties who favour this approach.

a couple that we saw with large rooms are Laguna Park, Bayshore Park, Mandarin Gardens (all East Coast) They are also all a little older.

Good luck with your hunt. In regards to property search, I found the best way to catch all properties on the market is to use a combination of the three large sites (This one, . and iProperty) they all have similar facilities, but handle quite differently. $5K if you are willing to live out the centre a little should be plenty for what you want, you could even rent a landed for that, the rooms will be bigger but you won't have the facilities.

[sarkarp]

Thanks for very valuable information. I did some research on internet. The 3 condos you mentioned actually are very convenient for me because there is a direct bus (Rt. 48) from that area to my work. Do you know if the Singapore American School buses come to east coast and does it take a long time to reach the school (by school bus)?

It's also good to know that cluster houses are usually bigger than condos. I'll keep that in mind while searching. May be that's a better option.

I totally agree with you that landed house is probably not a good option since there will be no facilities (at least a small gym and a kids playground will be nice to have). Also since we'll be new to Singapore it'll be good to live in condo or cluster house so that we can make friends with neighbors.

[nutnut]

If your kids are going to SAS, East Coast s probably not the best place to live, since SAS is up the north of the island.

Use gothere.sg website to find where everything you need is and what the best kind of area in the island would be, also use it when searching for a condo, put the condo details in for travel to school and work, it'll give you good times and alternative routes.

Yes, that's what we love about the condo, you have plenty of neighbours to meet, it's much better.

[zzm9980]

Wow, that would definitely be a hike to SAS.

Tangent, I'd suggest also checking Google Maps bus/train directions too in additoin to gothere.sg. I've noticed a few times lately Google gives much better directions. gothere.sg seems to have an aversion to walking more than 50m (so much to the point it has put me on bus rides 30minutes longer to avoid a 3 minute further walk), and it also sometimes will completely ignore the Circle line. (Dhoby gaut to Paya Lebar put me on NS then EW line, as opposed to just circle)


In this case though, gothere has a slightly faster route:
http://g.co/maps/xqxqs
http://gothere.sg/maps#q:laguna%20park% ... n%20school

[nakatago]

Neither is perfect so I'd usually try both and see whichever is more convenient and if feasible.

[kelvan]

the property search engines like . is a useful tool for searching for properties and its easy to find too with its feature. they have pictures, descriptions and asking of rental prices.

recently they made it so that dummy ads on these sites aren't allowed anymore so you probably won't be calling an agent who got "air".

one thing you have to note tho is that the listing on these sites are all agents only and no direct home owners.

[sundaymorningstaple]

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[thismyvoice]

If you want large bedrooms, and if you have the time, you can try bidding for a house/apartment through Singapore Land Authorities. There are always some available.

Some of the apartments may be rather rundown, but their terrace and bungalows should be fine. Rent should be a lot more reasonable too due to their unique rental condition and also because not many people know about it ... yet.

Do note the terms and condition though.

Cheers.