Chapter 4: Fridge, WashingMC & DNA

Last weekend is a super fruitful day. We have purchased our refrigerator and washing machine, and most importantly, ended the nightmare researches on these machines.

I promise you, fellow men, the most tiring thing in the whole process is to “select”.

Select the brand
Select the model
Select the shop to get the best deal

But the core of this energy draining process is to convince your wife that this is the one best deal.

At least, it applies to me.

And I consider myself lucky because my wife did the research on brand selection (for 1 hour) and narrowed it down to 2 brands.
(…which eventually is the same brand which I told her from my experience: Mitsubishi is good)
(…which eventually is the same brand after we went to 2 expo and look)

I would consider myself not only lucky but blessed because my wife also did the model selection (for a day)
(…which is because she likes the silver ion thing)
(…which contradicts the initial selection conditions)

I am not only blessed but is also truly loved by my wife because my wife believed in me when I said LET’s BUY THIS!
(…which is exactly the time when she is also tired and hungry)
(…which is also the same time when she finally believe in my explanation on the mechanical limitations in my house)

So to conclude, we learn that:

- Woman enjoys the process of never ending shopping and comparing. I believe that it is in their DNA, which must be inherited from the cave-woman whom gathered fruits for the family. Most probably, they would compare the fruits on different tress, and may be, compete among themselves to get the biggest apple.

- Man just want to do buy the thing they set off to buy and bring it home. I believe that it must be a DNA characteristic inherited from cave-man, whom was responsible for hunting. As long as it is a deer, it does not matter it is fat or thin, JUST HUNT IT AND CARRY IT HOME! It is the same deer no matter it is made in China, Thailand, Japan or Germany. It is going to end up ON THE SAME FIRE.

- When you wife ask you to do some research, she meant that she just want more information IN CASE she wants it. Eventually, she follows her instinct and rules. But, a word of caution, YOU STILL HAVE TO DO IT and DO IT PROPERLY.

- Finally, just act accordingly and follow your wife’s direction, and you will survive.

If you have been reading till here and is secretly laughing in your heart because you are resonating to what I have written.

You have been tricked! You have failed!! You lousy shit.

If you have gone through similar purchase experience with your wife, this is because you have not constructed enough positive experience for your wife to trust you enough! You lousy thing. You must improve!

I love you, my wife. See, I am not one of them. What I have written is the exact opposite of how I felt. It is a totally fair and an enjoyable experience. YAHOO~~ Let’s shop for the stove and air-conditioning! WOOOO I love comparing deer!

OUR WASHING MACHINE

OUR FRIDGE

OMG~~~!!!

Chapter 3: Burning the Wallet

Holiday can really corrode one’s mind and body. My plan to keep fit (lose 1kg every week) is going down the drain. Last week was a failure and I am really getting tired to travel to the swimming pool to swim 30min.

Before getting to the topic, I am glad that we have selected Artrend because they are really flexible on our design changes; and our designer, Zhi Qi is very approachable, patient, responsible and responsive.

(Just in case you are planning to see her for your home design, do not let her innocent look trick you into thinking she is not experienced)

Purchasing.

Since we have little cash left after the initial payment to Artrend and the down payment to HDB, we put in lots of effort in getting the best furniture within our budget:

Rule #1: The first step is important
Like many other things, “The First Time” is important. Normal civilian, like us, do not know what is the normal price of a piece of furniture. And usually parents tend to mark-down the price on their purchases to “ensure” that you don’t pay that much and mostly, those prices were 10 years old.

After our initial “failures” in purchasing the first few pieces of our furniture, we concluded that the best pricing bench mark comes from those LoKok furniture shops in the old neighborhood and internet furniture sites with prices listed. Of course, this only applies if you are not going for those high end Italian furniture. For us, we go for the cheaper China made “mass-production” aka. Replica-model.

Furniture expo: Nope, their price is not cheap at all for a normal piece of furniture.

IKEA: Nope, their price is for those non-lasting compress wood furniture and they have designers to pay for

Parents: May be out-dated. And it is always best to do your homework yourself.

Balestier and Kallang: Nope, I happen to find out some of the shops with different names actually belong to the same owner. So pricing there is extremely “tricky”. I picture them as a fish net and the fisherman basically know that you, fishes, are here to get the bait.

Neighborhood shop: Yes, and since it is in a neighborhood, they aim for return customer and will not “cut your throat”

Internet Furniture Shop: Yes, since they have listed their price, they are confident that it is competitive and their price is the bait. (Just call them up and make sure the quality is there or look at the forums. Make sure you are comparing apple to apple)

Rule #2: Be Patient, Be Very Patient!
Do not rush to buy your furniture. Do not believe the sales when they said that it is the last piece or it is going fast with limited stock.

Most of the local suppliers made furniture by purchase orders so there is always “stock”. (However, if you are buying imported ones, there may be a stock limit)

And if he is offering a discount, he will still offer the same discount after the sale period. (This is because if he is willing to let go that part of margin today, the margin will still be enough for him to sacrifice on any other day)

The point is: Always give yourself a cool-down period before signing. The sales, of course, will want you to do the opposite.

Rule #3: The timing is also important
When you are sure that the piece is what you really want and you have already a good grasp of the cost, you should choose a good timing to go to the shop to make the purchase.

Pick a timing when there will be min number of customers at the shop and when the shop will most likely to have no sale for the day.

There are 2 reasons:
If there are not much people in the shop, you can negotiate for longer and has more attention span from the sale. More importantly, I find that when there is no customer around, the sales will not worry that other customers will “monkey see monkey do”

Secondly, if the day you went to the shop is one that has very less sale, the sales will be more willing to cut price for you to pump up the sale quantity of the day. It will also be better if you are the first customer of the day; Chinese believes that the first deal of the day will “start the ball rolling”. So he will be willing to throw in more discount to make you “start the ball rolling”

I tried (on Wed Morning) and got my coffee table $170 cheaper.

Rule #4: Must know the rules of CASE
CASE stands for Consumer Association of Singapore. The reason I wrote this is because I have a very unpleasant experience with X’clusive Home. I would not blame the company but rather the sales.

It is important that you read through the notes in the CASE website before you go off to complain at the shop. This is important because you need to make sure you didn’t make the mistake and confirm the fault is with the seller. That way, you know how strong a negotiation power you have.

For my case, lucky that when I bought the piece, I had point to the piece and asked, “how much is THIS?” and had taken a photograph. This is extremely important because unless the sales has specifically inform you that the price he gave you had less options, he had to sell you the one that you have specify at the price he gave you. For instance, if you have asked for the price of a merchandise with all the options, and the sales quoted you a price with no option but had failed to inform you, he has to sell you the one with all the options at the quoted price once the purchased is signed. (This means that he has to tell you before you sign the purchase order, otherwise, he has misled you to making the purchase.)

So know the rules of the game, before going down to argue.

In the end, I saved even more because now I have all the options.

OUR COFFEE TABLE


DINNING TABLE


OUR SIMMONS BACKCARE SERIES =P


OUR SOFA - TOFU

Chapter 2: Engaging the Pro

With our “good” sense of taste and busy lifestyle, we knew that we could not do the renovation ourselves.

So the next step of our journey bought us to the professionals: The interior designers.

Searching the web and a walk along Balestier Road revealed a dozen of interior design studios.

Just a word of advice: when you go to the design studio, make sure you have your floor plan ready. You can order it from HDB’s website.

Since we want to limit our spending, we decided that we would ask the designer to revamp our living room, master room and the master toilet.
We would go for IKEA and trust our design instinct for both the common rooms.

We went for 3 studios to compare price:

Project I
- Cost: $18,500
- Relatively small studio but there is always customers
- Workshop is in Malaysia
- Craftsman and labor are from Malaysia
- Designer is very familiar with HDB rules and has a good portfolio for you to choose your preference
- Payment term is: 15%-40%-40%-5%
- Very educational in terms of all the HDB-No-No. And the comprehensive portfolio could give you many hints on how to renovate the house

Square Room
- Cost: $15,000
- Med size studio but it is always empty
- NOTE: Although it shares the same name as the popular SQUAREROOM magazine, they are not related
- Workshop and labor are both in Singapore
- The designer is OK but offer not much impressive information
- The portfolio is OK
- Payment term is: 15%-40%-40%-5%
- The only studio that absorbs the 7% GST

ARTREND DESIGN
- Cost: $17,000
- Large Studio and there is always customers
- 25 years in business
- Workshop and labor are both in Singapore
- The designer is very enthusiastic and keen to make sketches even before 1st payment
- The portfolio is OK
- Payment term is: 10%-40%-45%-5%
- 敏 got blown off the moment the designer shown her the 3D concept sketch

As many of you who might have guessed from the last statement, we picked Artrend and proceed to a more detailed price negotiation.

Eventually the price comes down to $10,000 + 2,000 for wiring and polishing.

With that settled, the next phase of our journey brought us to the favorite activity shared by many women: Shopping.
- Sofa
- Coffee Table
- Dining Table
- Lighting
- Bed Frame
- 1 x Shower Head

LIVING ROOM DESIGN


MASTER BED ROOM DESIGN

Chapter 1: We got a House!

The story started 6 months back when we decided to get a resale flat in the open market in 2010 Dec instead of waiting for a BTO to dawn on us.

Advice for friends: Before you go hunting for your flat/agent, apply for the HLE at HDB]

As we began to look through the HDB web site, we were bombarded by the sheer volume of information available on the loan schemes, monthly installment amount, selling trend in the different area, etc.

However, one item concerned us the most: AMOUNT OF CASH REQUIRED.

At that time, we had worked for only 1.8 years and 敏had just turned PR and had only started paying the 20% CPF for a couple of months. This meant that we had very limited cash and an even more limited combined CPF amount. Adding salt to the wound were the debts we have already accumulated in our university days. (Education and Laptop loans)

Hoping to find an apartment with lower COV and to utilize the HDB grant, we started out searching for a 4-room flat near our parents’ in Yishun; only to find that the price tag does not goes down with the old age of the apartments in Yishun. The owners were asking for a COV of 30-40k regardless of distance to MRT, house condition and age of the house!

After even more house viewing, we realized that the government was just bull-shitting when they cheered themselves on the newspaper that the measurement they took to cool off the housing market was successful. The entire Singapore is generally having a COV of 30-40k. We had even viewed a house with fungi growing on the walls but still asking for a COV of 20k!

Here I provide a simple calculation which would illustrate our trapped situation:
Estimated Cash Required = $5k + [10%(Lowest Between Valuation and Resale Price)-CPF-Grant] + COV + 1%[Resale Price]

4 rooms HDB = $380k + $30-40k COV
Total CPF = $35k
Cash = $5k + [10%($380k)-35k-20k]<-Cannot be negative + 40k + 1%($410k) = $32k
Renovation + Lighting = 15k
Furniture + Electrical Appliance = 10k

Losing heart, we thought that it is not possible to get any flat from the open market with our saving.

Then like all good hearted people in any fairy tales, our prayers were answered.

Our agent brought us to Puggol where a 5 room flat is on sale with a COV of only $8,000.

Initially, we were not having much hope as we thought that the house would be in a rotten state or in a super-remote place, given the low COV the buyer was asking.

But to our surprise, the house is well maintained and decorated. Furthermore, there is a food-court, super market, clinic and a cleaning shop right at the door-step. Although it is not anywhere near the Puggol interchange, it is a 3 min walk to the LRT. The owners just wanted to sell the house quickly.

Overjoyed, we made our offer quickly and purchased the apartment at 8k COV, which sums up to a cash payment to about 20k.

With the house settled, our story on how we build our love nest begins.

LIVING ROOM BEFORE OWNER MOVED OUT


DINNING AREA BEFORE OWNER MOVED OUT


MASTER ROOM BEFORE OWNER MOVED OUT


GUEST ROOM BEFORE OWNER MOVE OUT


CLINIC BELOW


SUPER MARKET BELOW


BREAD SHOP BELOW


LRT STATION WITHIN 3 MIN


FOOD COURT BELOW