We didn't get off on any wrong foot that I'm aware of nor have you offended me. I'm just an ole farmboy who never learned the art of tact. Unfortunately, I'm well known for that. My apologies. I tend to be blunt and lack the verbal finesse of the academia based crowd. Anyway....
1. We currently have a number of threads running on the first or second pages of the relevant forums. While I understand your asking questions, a good feel of the market and feeling about which way it's going can be gleaned from those recent ongoing threads. What I said about flats under 5K still holds. They are showing flats to 3 or 4 people/couples at a time and they are having bidding wars on the spot with chequebooks in hand (an this is at the initial viewing!). Why bother to try to put in on a website or even in the newspapers. Most agents have lists of people living in those short-term furnished apts at astronomical prices while hunting for something affordable.
2. This is not my business but it is the wishes of this board's owners, who are realtors, to set the S.O.P. of the boards. With that in mind, you also have to remember that this is Singapore and not wherever it is you are coming from. Here, they just don't allow the competition or whatever might have a negative impact on their bottom line to be "advertised" on their boards. It is not just this one. Our posters here can make recommendation about anything or any business except that which is in direct conflict with the owner business or advertising their own businesses (we provide a free classifieds section for the purpose of keeping the threads clear of garbage). As I said, welcome to Singapore. You will find that the other main expat board is even worse. There you cannot recommend anything to anybody by name regardless whether or not the owners are involved in that business or not.
Others posting about other agencies will have the details deleted as per Admin directives.
3. Rentals here, while high and rising fast, still are way below what the same positions/rentals ratio are in Hong Kong and, for that matter, New York.
4. Fair enough, maybe my last comment wasn't the best it could have been but at the end of the day, It would seems that this real estate portal has grown from strength to strength. If it continues to grow, then it may well be able to even have walk-throughs online. Also, the other thing to realize is that even if interior photos are taken, it's possible that it's not what you would see when you visit the flat. The photos might be several years old or as is the penchant here, the flat would be completely renovated after the former tenant left thereby making the photos out of date.
Again, I did not mean to offend you. I just don't beat around the bush (although I'd like to beat a certain 'bush'!)
