Condo options for single guy

[holo]

Hi All,

I am a mid 40's single guy, will be working in Beach Road Singapore, close to Bugis mrt and would appreciate some accom suggestions prior to arriving in May. I live in a lively social area in Hong Kong so would like to be fairly close to bars, cafes, restaurants if possible. Or at least not too quiet a place as I will be by myself. So, following the template I comment as follows:

Priorities:
- your budget SG 5500 +/- 5%
- your workplace/s Beach Road is my office with regular trips to Asia Square
- the size and/or type of property that you are seeking I understand 2 beds are often more readily available, but 1 bed is fine too. Pool is nice not essential. 800sqft min perhaps.
- will you have a car here? No
- proximity to transport required. Mrt within 7 - 10 min walk.
- will you have any accompanying children needing to attend school? No, so other questions deleted as n/a


Nice to have:
- will you need to be able to say walk to the local shops, close to shops is good. Hawker centre or food as I won't cook much. Also, close to cafes , a bar or 2 would be nice also.
- access to any specific sport, social, and recreation facilities? Not necessary
- are you considering bringing any pets. No
- are you considering bringing any parents/in-laws etc? No

Your current home and commute:
- are you already a city dweller? Live in Hong Kong Island, used to and like the hustle and bustle
- what is the size and type condo 650 sqft
- what are any current commute times like? 20 mins door to door

Someone suggested Robertson Quay, but am not sure if it will be difficult to get to work as a distance from MRT from what I see. Any decent condo building recommendations ?

As an aside, So many of the property adverts are for indicative condo's not actual condos which is quite frustrating ! lol

Thank you all for reading this far.

[the lynx]

Hi All,

I am a mid 40's single guy, will be working in Beach Road Singapore, close to Bugis mrt and would appreciate some accom suggestions prior to arriving in May. I live in a lively social area in Hong Kong so would like to be fairly close to bars, cafes, restaurants if possible. Or at least not too quiet a place as I will be by myself. So, following the template I comment as follows:

Priorities:
- your budget SG 5500 +/- 5%
- your workplace/s Beach Road is my office with regular trips to Asia Square
- the size and/or type of property that you are seeking I understand 2 beds are often more readily available, but 1 bed is fine too. Pool is nice not essential. 800sqft min perhaps.
- will you have a car here? No
- proximity to transport required. Mrt within 7 - 10 min walk.
- will you have any accompanying children needing to attend school? No, so other questions deleted as n/a


Nice to have:
- will you need to be able to say walk to the local shops, close to shops is good. Hawker centre or food as I won't cook much. Also, close to cafes , a bar or 2 would be nice also.
- access to any specific sport, social, and recreation facilities? Not necessary
- are you considering bringing any pets. No
- are you considering bringing any parents/in-laws etc? No

You can try the condos behind Lavender MRT station. Like Penhas Road area. It is very close to Beach Road by walking distance. And you're close to Jalan Besar area which is famous for local food, Little India further up (more cafes and pubs and food), and Bugis (notably Arab Street/Haji Lane area) for hipster-like feel (more restaurants, pubs, cafes).

Robertson Quay is too far and the combo of buses and MRTs you have to take is too painful.

If your budget is $5500, you could choose a nice small condo in Little India (Mt Emily Road, Mackensize Road or Mayne Road). You can take direct bus to Beach Road and you're close to a variety of restaurants, pubs and cafes. And the famous local Tekka market too. And you're two train stations away to Clarke Quay and just one train station to Orchard Road shopping belt. And many bus options to a lot of places, even Bukit Timah area and Robertson Quay for more wine and dining.

You can also rent a small HDB apartment in Pinnacle at Duxton between Tanjong Pagar and Chinatown, which is almost right at the heart of the city with good dining and drinking options. You can try ICON condo nearby, but I don't think SGD5500 would be sufficient. Maybe the current drop of rental market would have changed the situation.

If it is hard for you to understand, you can use Google Map or Street Directory and key in the names I've mentioned above.

Your current home and commute:
- are you already a city dweller? Live in Hong Kong Island, used to and like the hustle and bustle
- what is the size and type condo 650 sqft
- what are any current commute times like? 20 mins door to door

Someone suggested Robertson Quay, but am not sure if it will be difficult to get to work as a distance from MRT from what I see. Any decent condo building recommendations ?

As an aside, So many of the property adverts are for indicative condo's not actual condos which is quite frustrating ! lol

Thank you all for reading this far.

[holo]

thanks Lynx, Icon was one I was looking at, prices seem easily achievable for SG5500 and under, indeed SG4k seems doable there unless I am missing something. ie something like this.

http://www...com.sg/search?q ... ch_select=

[the lynx]

thanks Lynx, Icon was one I was looking at, prices seem easily achievable for SG5500 and under, indeed SG4k seems doable there unless I am missing something. ie something like this.

http://www...com.sg/search?q=icon&search_select=

Your link is broken so I checked with this forum's property website instead (they host this free forum for us).

Yes you're right. The rent has gone down a lot since I last saw it years ago.

[rarkins]

Due to proximity to Bugis MRT, be aware that distance != time when it comes to door to door. i.e. condos close to a stop on green or blue lines might be convenient door-to-door even though being much further away geographically.

$5500/month for 800 sqft+ should get you the majority of condos within that range too. Concourse Skyline is really close, beyond that you could consider Parc Emily (getting towards Orchard Road) or The Sail & Marina Bay. Although I really like the Marina Bay area, including at night, some consider it boring and a little "abandoned" after most the office workers leave.

As you may have realised, you could lower your budget and still find really nice places too (e.g. Icon as was mentioned).

[JR8]

Hi All, I am a mid 40's single guy, will be working in Beach Road Singapore, close to Bugis mrt and would appreciate some accom suggestions prior to arriving in May. I live in a lively social area in Hong Kong so would like to be fairly close to bars, cafes, restaurants if possible. Or at least not too quiet a place as I will be by myself. So, following the template I comment as follows:

Hi Holo,
It’s interesting how each person’s profile always seems to require more thought than might be expected, the ideal suggestion never really leaps out, well not to me anyway. But here are some thoughts to get started with.
IME ‘lively social’ go together with downtown. But downtown also = high rent for smaller space. Outside of what might be considered touristy/very central areas, there doesn’t seem to be much if any ‘bar scene’, bars, nor indeed pubs. Joo chiat half way to Changi up the East Coast is one exception I can think of. It has many one-off smaller restaurants, in shophouses, lowrise, nice neighbourhood feeling. But many of the bars are KTV/working-girl territory from some doorways that I’ve seen therabouts. Also Chinatown down to Tanjong Pagar south of the main city area might be another, but the latter also has a rap for KTV joints though.

>>’Current commute, 20 minutes door-to-door.’ Wow, that’s short. Again, to replicate that here is going to cost money. I’m thinking East Coast might be the best fit.

Beach Road/Asia Sq are close enough that they might as well be considered a single point on the map/day.

You have a decent budget. If you were to consider something a bit more ‘zone 2’ I’m sure you’d get what you want 800ft/good 2-bed/(pool/facs) etc.... maybe just without the nightlife on the doorstep. Downtown that will be significantly more expensive.

1-beds are by definition rare. There’s almost no market for them amongst SGns where family is everything. If you do find them, usually pitched at expats, they’re in top-$ condos downtown. So again limiting yourself to 1-beds will counter-intuitively reduce your search to $-areas.

‘>>Robertson Quay, but am not sure if it will be difficult to get to work as a distance from MRT from what I see. Any decent condo building recommendations ?’
Oh no. It’d be like living above 20 pubs and three rave-joints, and fending your way through legions of vomiting tourists, trannies and all besides getting home each night. [Ok, slight exaggeration!]. Great to visit and party, but no way can I imagine anyone being happy living there for the longer term!? Maybe get a Serviced Apartment downtown initially, for a month or two. Get time to find your feet, get your bearings etc., and have had enough of living right in the hubba to realise that it’s not really what you want?

Your food/cooking requirements are pretty typical, so that doesn’t direct you really either way.

If you headed north up the red-line past Newton, Toa Payoh, Bradell and on to Bishan the units are larger/cheaper, but it’s more family orientated perhaps (few if any 1-beds). No pubs beyond Newton that I know of, in fact the last one I know of is the stop before, in Novena.

--- I’m not sure what the difference is between ‘So many of the property adverts are for indicative condo's not actual condos’. Do you mean the photos of said condos are indicative or ‘representative’, rather than the actual unit? If so, that’s because the agents are lazy, so rarely take actual photos of the units in question. Still, you should get a feel for what might be in your budget. And modern blocks are all cookie-cutter from one unit to another on the internals anyway IME.

Right now I’m erring to: Not Robertson, or any of The Quays. Probably out in the near East-Coast.

I look forward with interest to seeing what others think.

[JR8]

$5500/month for 800 sqft+ should get you the majority of condos within that range too. Concourse Skyline is really close, beyond that you could consider Parc Emily (getting towards Orchard Road) or The Sail & Marina Bay. Although I really like the Marina Bay area, including at night, some consider it boring and a little "abandoned" after most the office workers leave.

As you may have realised, you could lower your budget and still find really nice places too (e.g. Icon as was mentioned).

Assuming Concourse Skyline is built on what was the Concourse plaza development, that could be interesting. The streets between North Bridge Rd and Victoria St and quite characterful too. [Haji, Muscat, Kandahar etc]. I'd just caution against 'living above the shop', as such.

Parc Emily. Had to Google that. Wow, it's up on the way to Mount Sophia, where I first lived here 20 years ago. Good if in your budget. Central, a stroll to Orchard, but as you're up on the hill you feel instantly removed from the hubbub. Like I said.... if you can afford it, I'd look v closely at that mini-area of streets. Could be a solid candidate.


Sail/Marina Bay. Oh no, not for me. Desolate, windswept, expensive. Many local restaurants etc closed on weekends. A sense of transience, detached from real life in SG. [Well just MHO! ] I wouldn't want to live there. My impression it's more aimed at short-term stays for finance people in the Raffles Place area nearby. I've never met anyone that actually *lives* there!

[holo]

Update:

My agent is going to take me to look at Concourse Skyline at Beach Road, Icon and also City Lights for comparision. Will advise thoughts.

Thanks

[bgd]

Burlington Square is walking distance to Bugis. Don't know what it's like internally but it always struck me as a well located condo if you like a little bit of city buzz.

[ecureilx]

Burlington Square is walking distance to Bugis. Don't know what it's like internally but it always struck me as a well located condo if you like a little bit of city buzz.

Behind Sim Lim.. on weekends it becomes an extension of Little India crowd, sorts of ..

[holo]

Update, looked at Skyline, Icon, City Lights.
Icon was nice, I was definitely interested. City Lights cheaper and the units I saw were a little tired.
Settled on an apartment in Skyline, brand new, first renter, great views and very nice facilities.

Thanks for your help all.