Is it even worth living in SG anymore as a foreigner?

[PNGMK]

^ I think this is coming WD. The new apartments put up over enblocs are usually ~700sqft at most.

[nakatago]

Me, almost a decade ago...

[smoulder]

At the moment, MM2H in west Malaysia is not going to be very easy with a requirement of 10k usd per month to qualify. A tall ask when you are retired. You might want to check out the retirement thread.

Also, what's the issue with retiring in India?

Need a lot of money to retire in India with a good standard of living. It’s completely wrong of people thinking that India is cheap, it’s not..
I don’t have a property there and I won’t be able to afford one now, it has become a situation where I have nowhere to go at this time except be in singapore for the long term, I am not thinking about retiring or retirement yet but I can buy a nice property in Malaysia at this time and it will be much cheaper than that in India ..

Also I don’t think I can live in India again a anymore, the traffic, the population , the country not being clean etc etc I get overwhelmed just by thinking about it

India is very big, if you have like 1Million SGD, you can move to a new tier 2 place like Goa or Dehradun near the mountains and have an awesome life away from all the hustle and bustle of the city.

You seem to have stayed away from India for a long time. But I have been to Malaysia, Penang, Cameron, Langkawi, KL, Tioman, JB etc. To me in many aspects India is better than Malaysia. Atleast in India I am like home and dont look like a foreigner. In Malaysia, I remember going to Mersing an Indian restaurant and the local Indians there were staring at us in an unfriendly way. Even in Cameron highlands, the local Indians werent exactly friendly with us. They immediately know we are from India and I believe they have some preconceived notions about Indians.

I think outside of KL, it is very difficult to live as an Indian. I remember going to Batu Feringgi, Penang and trying to find an Indian restaurant, in the end we found a Pakistani restaurant only. The food was good, but still just felt a bit scary.

Also economy wise, Malaysia has just gone downhill after the Asian financial crisis, it just looks like a failed economy to me. While India since the year 2000 has grown into a major economy.

Purchasing power in Bangalore is better than KL:

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/c ... ala+Lumpur

Different strokes for different folks. You'll find different Indians have very different experiences in Malaysia. I go there so often and feel quite at home. I know other Indians who do as well including someone who is married to a Malaysian Chinese woman and working in a bank in Malaysia.

What we all have in common is that we aren't vegetarians - that immediately restricts you and makes life harder in most countries.

Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if TH1 has what they call reverse cultural shock at the thought of moving back to India.

I do agree with you that there are many different types of places you could move to in India to suit different needs and budgets. For me, hypothetically, if I had to move to India I would have to pick a tier 1 city - tier 2 cities just wouldn't cut it.

[malcontent]

On the original question, if the goal is to live here long term, it really isn't very feasible without PR. Unless of course you are incredibly wealthy. All the expats I know are hoping to get PR, or making a plan B. I don't see it getting any easier in the next few years.

Like I was told by admissions when I enrolled my son at SAS, it’s better not to do the math… it will never make sense.

[Wd40]

Need a lot of money to retire in India with a good standard of living. It’s completely wrong of people thinking that India is cheap, it’s not..
I don’t have a property there and I won’t be able to afford one now, it has become a situation where I have nowhere to go at this time except be in singapore for the long term, I am not thinking about retiring or retirement yet but I can buy a nice property in Malaysia at this time and it will be much cheaper than that in India ..

Also I don’t think I can live in India again a anymore, the traffic, the population , the country not being clean etc etc I get overwhelmed just by thinking about it

India is very big, if you have like 1Million SGD, you can move to a new tier 2 place like Goa or Dehradun near the mountains and have an awesome life away from all the hustle and bustle of the city.

You seem to have stayed away from India for a long time. But I have been to Malaysia, Penang, Cameron, Langkawi, KL, Tioman, JB etc. To me in many aspects India is better than Malaysia. Atleast in India I am like home and dont look like a foreigner. In Malaysia, I remember going to Mersing an Indian restaurant and the local Indians there were staring at us in an unfriendly way. Even in Cameron highlands, the local Indians werent exactly friendly with us. They immediately know we are from India and I believe they have some preconceived notions about Indians.

I think outside of KL, it is very difficult to live as an Indian. I remember going to Batu Feringgi, Penang and trying to find an Indian restaurant, in the end we found a Pakistani restaurant only. The food was good, but still just felt a bit scary.

Also economy wise, Malaysia has just gone downhill after the Asian financial crisis, it just looks like a failed economy to me. While India since the year 2000 has grown into a major economy.

Purchasing power in Bangalore is better than KL:

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/c ... ala+Lumpur

Different strokes for different folks. You'll find different Indians have very different experiences in Malaysia. I go there so often and feel quite at home. I know other Indians who do as well including someone who is married to a Malaysian Chinese woman and working in a bank in Malaysia.

What we all have in common is that we aren't vegetarians - that immediately restricts you and makes life harder in most countries.

Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if TH1 has what they call reverse cultural shock at the thought of moving back to India.

I do agree with you that there are many different types of places you could move to in India to suit different needs and budgets. For me, hypothetically, if I had to move to India I would have to pick a tier 1 city - tier 2 cities just wouldn't cut it.

I know neither Chinese nor Malay and Tamil I can barely understand. I don't know what I will get by going to Malaysia which I won't get in India.

1)In Malaysia, I will be a foreigner, having difficulty to converse with the locals.

2)Neither the Indians there will accept us as their own nor the other races.

3)Salaries are on par or actually lower than India

4)Cost of living is on par or higher than India

5)KL is a pretty cosmopolitan city, so it is livable, but it has the same problems like some big Indian cities have.

6)Biggest issue for the next generation, education and career wise Malaysia is not a great place. India is way better than Malaysia to do your education and get into a big company via placements and then easily move abroad. How many Malaysians do you see overseas in established positions? Malaysians themselves try to migrate out to other countries to escape their Bumiputra system.

7)Their politics and corruption would make India look like a safe haven.

8)In some countries Indians have a good name, like in the US, we are looked at as "IT guys" but not so in Malaysia, there is a dark history. I would rather be part of the majority in India and part of the favorable part of the demographics than going to Malaysia and becoming part of the non-favorable part of demographics. Singapore has already given a light taste of it. Malaysia would be 100 times worse.

Overall, I just feel sorry for that country, it showed a lot of promise in the late 90s when they built the Petronas Twin towers. Now those same Twin Towers are a symbol of their past glory and what the country could have been. In comparison, India is the place where things are happening, with China now facing major problems, for Indians India seems like the default automatic place to go back to.

The best indicator is to see how Nifty is doing v/s Hang Seng index or S&P this year.

I would actually consider Dubai or Abu Dhabi ahead of Malaysia. It is very easy to live there as an Indian and they are now actually opening up and giving long term visas to foreigners.

[smoulder]

To each his own. My point is that while you feel uncomfortable, there are others who defy the logic you put forth and are perfectly comfortable.

By feeling at home, I certainly don't mean that we can blend in, speak like locals and look like locals. Even if we settle down in a place and become citizens, the best we can do is not look like we are fresh off the boat - we can perhaps eat like locals and mingle with locals like it's second nature. Despite that, we will always look and sound different. And this is no different from say a Caucasian retiring in Thailand or Bali or Singapore. It's not different from an Indian who chooses to settle down in the US or UK or Singapore.

That's just how immigration works - its not everyone's cup of tea and I accept that.

Now we can go back and forth on why someone would choose to move to a new country and choose to settle there despite being obviously different from the locals - there could be some rational explanations along the lines of money, quality of life and so on. And sometimes there just may not be - there are many hard to explain reasons why someone would choose to be a foreigner vs just another guy in his own country. I suspect that TH1 falls in that category - like I mentioned, he has probably just become so accustomed to life in South East Asia that he would feel out of place if he moved back. This is not an unusual phenomenon.

[NYY1]

I just feel we have been lucky so far to be able to live in Singapore and enjoy relatively low rents for the space we get. I have been paying like 1.8-2.3k for 1200 sqft of space in this landscarce city state. Singapore ought to have Hong Kong like property dynamics given the similar size of country, economy and being a sought after city to live in Asia.

The only problem is Singapore housing configuration is just too big and hence when the psft rents increase, the quantum is just too much for a 3 bedroom apartment and the only way out is sharing rooms.

Singapore should have done more expat friendly housing configurations, maybe like higher end dormitories so that expats can live in an enclave.

For the last part in bold, while possibly well intentioned, I don't think this would work well. Think about it; use ideal (central, amenities nearby, convenient transport) gov't land to build facilities for expats instead of new HDB blocks/town (for citizens). I'd guess that if the facilities were lacking in typical wow factors, then most likely they would be empty (while your route/experience has its pros, you are likely in a minority of what expats want when they come here).

[smoulder]

^apart from how the expats would view it, it's not going to sit very well with locals if you were to intentionally have enclaves for expats. You can already see how much of shit it's stirred that certain groups ended up in their own enclaves.

[malcontent]

I agree that housing options have always been overly limited here. When I first arrived, all that I wanted was something for around S$1k/mo, my own place — didn’t matter how small it was, even 200 sqft would have been fine. I don’t believe developers are even allowed to build such units here. In the end, all the people who need such accommodations are all forced into room rentals or flat sharing. Personally, it’s not my cup of tea… but I had no choice for the first 5-6 years that I lived here, and it was only thanks to the housing crash that I finally got a “studio” apartment for $1.2k per month, which was actually a huge 650sqft single bedroom unit, way more than I needed. Since then, I know developers have been allowed to build studio apartments that half that size, but they are called shoebox apartments and have a bad reputation — and because of their scarcity, they also go for way too much money, so not sure if it really helps.

[Wd40]

^apart from how the expats would view it, it's not going to sit very well with locals if you were to intentionally have enclaves for expats. You can already see how much of shit it's stirred that certain groups ended up in their own enclaves.

I am just saying something like slightly better than dormitories, where single or expat couples can live in 500sqft houses. Kind of like HDB for expats. I don't understand why won't it sit well with locals? The housing here was not built keeping expats in mind. Expats in the end also need to live here and from what I understand, the authorities don't want expats to integrate and cause friction. Thats why our kids are not even given local school seats. So why not just put us somewhere like Pulau Ubin with our own International Schools and employers allow us to WFH also, so we don't even need to come to mainland Singapore. It is like a win win.

They are already doing this for the construction workers, housing them in dormitories away from the everyone's sights. Might as well do the same for expats also. I would definitely sign up for it.

[malcontent]

^apart from how the expats would view it, it's not going to sit very well with locals if you were to intentionally have enclaves for expats. You can already see how much of shit it's stirred that certain groups ended up in their own enclaves.

The HDB ethnic integration policies were designed specifically to eliminate such enclaves, but aimed exclusively at locals.

Do they really care about expats? Maybe if it bothers the locals… but beyond that, they seem happy to let expats live in their bubble. In fact, it might even be preferable… to avoid cultural pollution. Or maybe I’m too cynical?

[malcontent]

^apart from how the expats would view it, it's not going to sit very well with locals if you were to intentionally have enclaves for expats. You can already see how much of shit it's stirred that certain groups ended up in their own enclaves.

I am just saying something like slightly better than dormitories, where single or expat couples can live in 500sqft houses. Kind of like HDB for expats. I don't understand why won't it sit well with locals? The housing here was not built keeping expats in mind. Expats in the end also need to live here and from what I understand, the authorities don't want expats to integrate and cause friction. Thats why our kids are not even given local school seats. So why not just put us somewhere like Pulau Ubin with our own International Schools and employers allow us to WFH also, so we don't even need to come to mainland Singapore. It is like a win win.

They are already doing this for the construction workers, housing them in dormitories away from the everyone's sights. Might as well do the same for expats also. I would definitely sign up for it.

That would certainly take things to a new extreme. I wouldn’t want to live way out on Pulau Ubin, but the housing policies could definitely be improved. At least allow private developers a freer hand.

Over the years I’ve even come across private apartments that were subdivided (illegally) just to cater for this obvious need here.

[NYY1]

Maybe they don't want smaller units to be built? Otherwise, you end up like HK. Many probably already wish the current units were bigger.

One interesting dynamic is that the HDB and mass market condo sizes are pretty comparable right now.
-3 Room HDB vs 2 Bedroom Condo? Both around 700 square feet
-4 Room HDB vs. 3 Bedroom Condo? ~1,000 square feet vs. 900-1100 (+/-) square feet (condos of this size will have varying degrees of a full kitchen and yard).
-5 Room HDB will be bigger than most 3 Bedroom condos but a bit smaller than some of the 4 Bedroom Condos. ~1,200 square feet vs. 1,250 - 1,400 square feet (+/-).

I'm sure some people will still swap out if they can once they hit the MOP but you aren't buying more space any longer.

Anyways, I'm not sure why expats expect or think they are entitled to cheap housing in a city like Singapore. Shanghai, NYC, Bay Area, London? People move there for opportunity, not to have a free and easy lifestyle (those countries' citizens, not just foreigners, as well). Many young people in these cities also have roommates (like it or not).

[smoulder]

I do vaguely recall some agent telling me that they have some rule which dictates the minimum unit size to avoid a Hong Kong like situation.

[the observer]

Isn’t this what free market economics is all about.

Works both ways. For years, demand was less hence rent has been cheap.

It is not a free market, when one section of society is allowed to buy and rent out and the other section of society can only rent and cannot buy.

It is still a free market. I've sold my prev condo to a foreign couple who's forked out the 20% stamp duty. It's just whether you're willing to do so, but then again if you feel like you're transient here, by all means continue to rent.

The rental market moves in cycles, and I'm sure you remember 2012 when rentals were at the prev peak. It subsequently fell into a decline, before roaring up strongly last year and this.

In any case, young adults who's in their 20s are getting priced out of condos, and new HDBs queue number is like a lottery. So locals have a reason to moan as you do.

As for dormitories for expats, yeah there are some high end ones. It's probably more expensive than what you currently have. And like all dormitories, it isn't quite family friendly.

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economic ... se-40-cent