My family and I moved from our landed home last year to a condo to take advantage of our landed property price. Our landed property price rose too much and we decided to take profit and so we make a ton of money. After that we moved to a new condo and paid for it in cash. We really enjoy staying in a condo because of the beautiful landscaping and the amenities.
We realized that living in our landed home had a few disadvantages: (1) many cars parking at the road side creating a congested space and an eye sore (2) neighbors looking into your home from their balconies (3) people looking into your homes when they walk pass by (4) costly maintenance (5) high utilities bills (6) dogs barking (7) no security (8) salesmen and property agents knocking on your door. The only good thing about landed property living is the space inside.
When my wife and I retire, we plan to retire in a condo because we love condo living. We rather downgrade to a small studio condo unit than moving to a bigger
HDB flat. The downgrade then allows us to get cash for us to invest in the stock market for dividends. For instance, if we sell our condo at $1.8m, we then buy a studio condo unit for $800k, we will have $1m cash to buy dividend stocks which can give us dividends.
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Originally Posted by Unregistered
Condos and EC living is very different from living in HDB. It is one big reason why many people aspire to live condo/EC.
I upgraded to condo living at 48 yo, and quickly found out what I was missing all the years that I was staying in HDB. I thought my life was already good while staying in an exec flat. Staying in a condo brings up our quality of life to another level altogether. My children used to ask us to bring them out for swimming, or to let go to their friends' condo for swimming, etc.. Now their friends come over for swimming and barbecue. As we play tennis regularly we used to go where the public tennis courts are available. It was inconvenient to book, and there was no guarantee we could secure a court every week. What's worse was the unpredictable weather. But now, we play every week in the comfort of our condo. When it rains, there's no pain.
The other privilege is the car park. Unlike HDB, where the car park is quite a walk away, the condo car park is right below our unit. Some more we can have 2 car park lots. I remembered for HDB, we had to ballot every month for our 2nd car, and the lot given was a few blocks away. So inconvenient and troublesome.
It is just so wonderful staying in a condo. That's why I also worry when I retire, can I accept downgrading to HDB. |