Middle age couple looking for housing advice

[Neileen]

Hi,
My husband and I are excited about a new chapter in our lives that involves moving to Singapore for his work (our children have finished university and flying from the nest).
He will be working at NUHS and we would be very grateful for advice on where to live. We do not plan to get a car.
We would like a modern, luxurious-feeling apartment as we have always lived in older, period properties and yearn for clean, white walls! (especially as we will be child-free for the first time)
Obviously, proximity to schools is not an issue.
We would like somewhere quiet and green but within a 30 minute commute from NUHS by MRT.
Proximity to shops/restaurants would be ideal but not essential.
We would like a 2-3 bedroom with a budget of 5-7000 pcm.
Any suggestions about areas/condo developments to check out would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

[x9200]

Almost all condo apartments are painted white inside. What is luxury, I don't know, everyone has a different taste, but basically a norm for the local condos are things like swimming pools, gyms, bbq pits, marble floors in the apartments. Furniture and appliances varies with the owner, but bathrooms and some other elements come in two general flavors,

a) more recent (last few years), simplistic, squared basins, textured tiles, fish-tank balconies etc
b) hotel alike, bloody marble everywhere, tiles, floors, sinks top-boards, with gold plated elements

Generally I would not bother. Just narrow down the area of hunting and see what is offered. The areas may include:
Holland Village
Pasir Panjang / West Coast - some ocean-view
Condos around Harbourfront: Caribbean, Reflections - ocean-view / waterfront
Vicinity of Alexandra Rd.

[valleyman]

NUHS is on the Yellow line. The closest would be Dover Parkview & Heritage View condos near the Buena Vista MRT. Although not very new(I think 1997-2000 vintage), they are both very nice full facility condos with sizeable expat population due to nearby educational institutions. Definetely check those out. With your budget you can look at condos in the Holland Village area as well.

[x9200]

You can perfectly see now how individual perception varies. For me Dover Parkview & Heritage View are old, gloomy, claustrophobic, and with your budget I would not even come close to these two, but yeah, check them out, you should get all the flavours.

[valleyman]

Well I have lived in one and socialised a lot in the other, but that was around 8/10 years back. I used to love it then. Never felt claustrophobic and the facilities were awesome. Dover had 4 tennis courts with two of them made of artificial turf and two hard cement surfaces. Then the Japanese bath, sauna, big pools, ample parking and barbeque pits etc. In newer condos, you will hardly find this amount of free space.

I dunno how the condos have evolved over the years and as x9200 says, best for the OP to check them out.

[PNGMK]

NUH has a lot of choice nearby. I personally would be looking in the Pasir Panjang Area or even maybe along the coast at the Keppel area.

[x9200]

Aesthetics and ambiance vs functionality, the later divided by the No of occupants. These two condos are big. We visited a couple of apartments ca 7-8y ago and decided to go elsewhere paying more.

[PNGMK]

OP should or could also consider Holland Village area?

[thismyvoice]

NUHS is on the Yellow line. The closest would be Dover Parkview & Heritage View condos near the Buena Vista MRT. Although not very new(I think 1997-2000 vintage), they are both very nice full facility condos with sizeable expat population due to nearby educational institutions. Definetely check those out. With your budget you can look at condos in the Holland Village area as well.

Dover Parkview and Heritage View are both about 15 minutes walk to MRT station, me thinks. If I am not wrong, Heritage View was an award winning condominium when it was first built. Pretty decent.

Heritage View is directly opposite a school. May not be that quiet.

[Neileen]

Thank you all for your helpful comments and advice.
We have looked at . based on your suggestions and will investigate Reflections Keppel bay and two very new condos at Holland village: Lush and Parvis. Any advice about what to look for or be wary of? Thanks

[x9200]

Thank you all for your helpful comments and advice.
We have looked at . based on your suggestions and will investigate Reflections Keppel bay and two very new condos at Holland village: Lush and Parvis. Any advice about what to look for or be wary of? Thanks

At the stage of browsing through the offers, not too much. You may want to visit the place at different times of the day and different days to asses things like ambient noise (construction sites, traffic, neighbours), sun direction (what time of the day in what part of the flat is hot).

Later, after you decided it would be the landlords and the agents. Yes, I am serious. Don't trust them, including your own agent. I know how it sounds, but the local rental market is just vicious.

If there is anything in the landlord that you feel not comfortable with and consider it worrying (for example, very inflexible), better find another flat. Once you come to a verbal agreement and proceed to Letter of Intent (LoI, a local custom) and later the Tenancy Agreement (TA), have all, point by point included at least in the TA, preferably in LoI and TA. If you requested a new washing machine and had it promised, it has to be stated in the TA etc etc.

Don't accept anything in TA you don't feel ok with. You will be told these are "standard clauses". Don't accept them if you are not sure - ask here. In principle you are free to change anything in TA you don't like and it works this way for 80% of the "standard clauses".