Recommendations for a smooth arrival

[pomwi]

I will be relocating to Singapore later this year with a wife and two young children, and would like to ask for recommendations to achieve a smooth arrival.

As (I assume) most new arrivals, our personal effects will ship on our date of departure from our origin country. This means we'll have a ~10 week delay until it arrives in Singapore.

We would like to understand the options for arriving to a fully furnished apartment, but transitioning to our own personal effects when they arrive.

We've seen several apartments advertised which are offered as "fully furnished" with the option to have them "partially" or "unfurnished" (presumably the landlord will add/remove furniture accordingly). We've also seen fully furnished apartments offered on a "flexible" lease.

The question is whether we are able to take an apartment as "fully furnished" initially, and negotiate with the landlord to remove his/her furniture when ours arrives (~2-3 months down the line)? Alternatively, we can take a fully furnished apartment on a short-term lease (e.g. 3 months) and move to an unfurnished apartment when our lease is up and stuff has arrived.

We don't really want to spend the money on a Serviced Apartment, as all the ones we've seen have been prohibitively expensive. We also want to minimise the number of moves given the young family members. We're looking a condo apartments, not HDB.

Do any members have recommendations based on their "smooth arrival" experiences?

[sundaymorningstaple]

I will be relocating to Singapore later this year with a wife and two young children, and would like to ask for recommendations to achieve a smooth arrival.

As (I assume) most new arrivals, our personal effects will ship on our date of departure from our origin country. This means we'll have a ~10 week delay until it arrives in Singapore.

We would like to understand the options for arriving to a fully furnished apartment, but transitioning to our own personal effects when they arrive.

We've seen several apartments advertised which are offered as "fully furnished" with the option to have them "partially" or "unfurnished" (presumably the landlord will add/remove furniture accordingly). We've also seen fully furnished apartments offered on a "flexible" lease.

The question is whether we are able to take an apartment as "fully furnished" initially, and negotiate with the landlord to remove his/her furniture when ours arrives (~2-3 months down the line)? Alternatively, we can take a fully furnished apartment on a short-term lease (e.g. 3 months) and move to an unfurnished apartment when our lease is up and stuff has arrived.

This is doubtful. As space in Singapore is a premium, most landlords do not have "storage" facilities to remove the furniture too. Therefore, normally you will have to store it yourself if you want to use your own furniture. Or find a unit that is partially furnished (this usually mean white goods only) or unfurnished.

We don't really want to spend the money on a Serviced Apartment, as all the ones we've seen have been prohibitively expensive. We also want to minimise the number of moves given the young family members. We're looking a condo apartments, not HDB.

This is going to be your only option, frankly, as most landlord are NOT going to sign a 2-3 month month lease. There are Serviced Apartments here for as little as 3300/mo looking at one of the posts on here yesterday.

Do any members have recommendations based on their "smooth arrival" experiences?

The smoothest arrival is one where the employer puts you up in a Serviced Apartment until such time as you locate your new quarters and your furniture arrives. Otherwise, you have to just make it as comfortable as you can under the circumstances.

[pomwi]

Thanks for the honest opinion. Perhaps we could consider furniture rental for the basics until our stuff arrives?

We were planning to ship our stuff a couple of months early so that it would be here when we arrived, but were advised by the Moving Company that Singapore requires the shipper (i.e. us) to be in the country when the shipment (our personal effects) arrive. I've taken a look at the Customs Website and can't see any mention of this requirement though. Does anyone know if this is correct?

[JayCee]

Just out of interest, where are you coming from as 10+ weeks sounds like a long time

[pomwi]

Just out of interest, where are you coming from as 10+ weeks sounds like a long time

We're coming from New Zealand. 10 weeks is the worst-case time we've been told from the relocation company. Personal experience suggests that this is pessimistic, as we had personal effects shipped to New Zealand from Europe and it took around 6 weeks.

[pomwi]

I will be relocating to

This is doubtful. As space in Singapore is a premium, most landlords do not have "storage" facilities to remove the furniture too. Therefore, normally you will have to store it yourself if you want to use your own furniture. Or find a unit that is partially furnished (this usually mean white goods only) or unfurnished.

I took a look through the "useful links" in your signature and found a couple of furniture leasing companies. One in particular (http://www.furnitureleasing.com.sg/) looks like they can provide a good set of basic furniture and whiteware for a couple of months at a reasonable price. If anyone has positive/negative experiences with them it'd be useful to hear.

It looks like the best option will be to arrange for rental until our own personal effects arrive.

[JR8]

It was my experience too that the time quoted for my Europe-SG sea-freight was greatly exaggerated. I don't know, in the end it took 4-5 weeks or something.

So if you move into a Serviced Apartment for a month, do you really want the fuss and flap of renting furniture in a permanent place for says two weeks?

The standard approach is to arrive, have the co. pay for a serviced apartment, perhaps for a month. While you find a place of your own. I'd suggest maybe extending the Svc Apt at your own expense if needs be until your freight arrives. Minimum disruption was a stated objective, and this a standard route the majority of those in your kinda shoes who have gone before have followed...

[pomwi]

All good tips. Thank you.

[arw]

You could take an unfurnished apartment and rent furniture short term before your's arrives.

[QRM]

We moved into our apartment with no furniture, just bought mattress from IKEA (sheets and pillows covers we brought with us,) a couple of bean bags, some basic kitchen stuff plus a TV. We lived like a pykee for a few weeks which was good fun.

Kids will love it if you have scooters they can zip around the empty house and can choose a different place to sleep every night.

Eating out is very cheap here depending where you live, restaurants and food courts was just a 2 min walk away.

[beenthere]

We had our stuff shipped several weeks early, so that we had no delay in getting our stuff in the day the lease began. In the interim we were put up in a hotel and assigned a realtor to help us find our place. Given that we had done our homework and knew what was available and what we wanted, we found the place in no time and only had to staya couple of weeks in the hotel.

[pomwi]

You could take an unfurnished apartment and rent furniture short term before your's arrives.

I don't suppose anyone can recommend a short-term furniture leasing company that they have used or have heard recommended?

I'm interested in getting a couple of quotes for basic furniture for a month or two after we arrive.