How much are you earning per annum?

You don't get it do you? You are basically deep in debt. Your condo loan is overwhelming and your savings is minuscule. May god bless you!!

[hnnbllctr]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Why not? I have friends whose HH income (both husband and wife working) is less than mine (one person working) and they qualify for EC. Their EC cost and loan are similar to mine. Why can they and why I could not? My job is very stable and I should be able to finance my mortgage without any problem. As long as I'm working, we can stay in the condo. If anything happens to me and I can't work, we will then downgrade to a hdb flat and my wife will have to go back to work.

By the time I reach 65 and retire, I would have paid off the condo. We can then sell the condo and move to a studio unit. I will have cash to invest and CPF Life.

Your boss will be the happiest to learn of your situation, as he realises that you need the job much more than ever. You are not that cheap hence jobs that pay the at same level doesn't come by that easily.

He will be extremely pleased to know that he can squeeze you dry to the last drop and you won't make a peep.

His situation is not far different from mine when I was his age, except his is maybe better than mine.

When we married, we applied for HDB flat but was told the waiting time would be 2.5 to 3 years. We waited for 1 year, went for balloting for left-over units but was still unsuccessful. We decided not to wait any more , and decided to plunge head on into private property. We bought a small 2 bedroom unit, paid for it with whatever savings we had and took loans for the remainder.

Then came the children, and we decided to upgrade to a bigger unit. But because we already owned private property we could not buy a new HDB flat any more, so we bought a bigger 3 bedroom private property. We took on a total of 2 loans!

Just before we could off load the smaller apartment, the gulf war started and property price plunged! We decided to hold onto to the unit and rent it out at very low rental. It was quite a terrible belt tightening time for us, and there were months where we had negative savings. We held on to both units for more than 10 years! and living very frugally (except for the car), all our holidays were self drive holidays to M'sia (Cameron, Genting, Taman Negara, Melaka etc). They were cheap and good holidays nonetheless.

Then came the MRT stations announcements, and prices started to recover (no, not recover, but sprang up!). Our small apartment was enbloc giving 3x what we paid for.

We immediately bought another 4 bedroom apartment with the enbloc windfall, moved our now bigger family into it, and rented out the 3 bedroom unit. Within 2 years, the 3 bedroom apartment also went enbloc but the returns not so fantastic.

Again, we used the money to buy yet another condo unit. This time not to stay but for rental income.

Looking back, if you ask me to do it again, I would say no way. It was scary time for us, But sometimes fortune favours the brave. Why? Because when I look at my classmates who went the HDB way, they are still staying in HDB. That's 30 years since we graduated.

Nothing wrong in staying in HDB flats, but they missed the exciting property cycles, and the fortune they could have made. Networth wise, I am guessing that ours are higher primarily because of the private property gains we had. They are letting on that they have around $2m to $3m but we have above $5m

Originally Posted by Unregistered

You don't get it do you? You are basically deep in debt. Your condo loan is overwhelming and your savings is minuscule. May god bless you!!

Thanks for sharing!

I guess it all boils down to holding power. I assume you had/have an iron rice bowl sort of job that you didn't fear to lose even in times of crises?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

His situation is not far different from mine when I was his age, except his is maybe better than mine.

When we married, we applied for HDB flat but was told the waiting time would be 2.5 to 3 years. We waited for 1 year, went for balloting for left-over units but was still unsuccessful. We decided not to wait any more , and decided to plunge head on into private property. We bought a small 2 bedroom unit, paid for it with whatever savings we had and took loans for the remainder.

Then came the children, and we decided to upgrade to a bigger unit. But because we already owned private property we could not buy a new HDB flat any more, so we bought a bigger 3 bedroom private property. We took on a total of 2 loans!

Just before we could off load the smaller apartment, the gulf war started and property price plunged! We decided to hold onto to the unit and rent it out at very low rental. It was quite a terrible belt tightening time for us, and there were months where we had negative savings. We held on to both units for more than 10 years! and living very frugally (except for the car), all our holidays were self drive holidays to M'sia (Cameron, Genting, Taman Negara, Melaka etc). They were cheap and good holidays nonetheless.

Then came the MRT stations announcements, and prices started to recover (no, not recover, but sprang up!). Our small apartment was enbloc giving 3x what we paid for.

We immediately bought another 4 bedroom apartment with the enbloc windfall, moved our now bigger family into it, and rented out the 3 bedroom unit. Within 2 years, the 3 bedroom apartment also went enbloc but the returns not so fantastic.

Again, we used the money to buy yet another condo unit. This time not to stay but for rental income.

Looking back, if you ask me to do it again, I would say no way. It was scary time for us, But sometimes fortune favours the brave. Why? Because when I look at my classmates who went the HDB way, they are still staying in HDB. That's 30 years since we graduated.

Nothing wrong in staying in HDB flats, but they missed the exciting property cycles, and the fortune they could have made. Networth wise, I am guessing that ours are higher primarily because of the private property gains we had. They are letting on that they have around $2m to $3m but we have above $5m

My wife was in the CS, so that helped us persevere. You cant imagine how difficult it was for us during that period.

At our lowest point, we were going to offload all our share holdings at great losses just to reduce the loans, but we didnt because the amount that we could get out of them was too low, and the losses were too painful to swallow.

During that time, a lot of people (especially relatives) were saying hurtful things like we got what we deserved for owning 2 properties.

Few important lessons we learnt :

1. That being frugal doesnt kill you.
2. Economy go in cycles. When at the lowest point, the only way is up. And new peaks most are higher than previous peaks.
3. Need to have thick skin. Then we felt people were either looking down on us or sympathetically at us.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Thanks for sharing!

I guess it all boils down to holding power. I assume you had/have an iron rice bowl sort of job that you didn't fear to lose even in times of crises?

Many couples in their 40s will sell their BTO flat after MOP. They will get big profits and use the profits for buying a condo and a new car. For example if their profits is $300k, they will use $200k for 20% downpayment of a $1m condo and $100k to buy a brand new car.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Many couples in their 40s will sell their BTO flat after MOP. They will get big profits and use the profits for buying a condo and a new car. For example if their profits is $300k, they will use $200k for 20% downpayment of a $1m condo and $100k to buy a brand new car.

Yes it's the same as my situation. I cashed out my condo profits of $600k and I just signed up a $200k conti car. Huat ah!

30yo taking 160k per annum. Wife is 27, taking 80k per annum.

Home is a small 850sqft condo in Dhoby Ghaut, purchased at 1mil three years back and recently transacted (lower floor same size) at 1.2mil, so I guess on a mark to market basis we're up by a bit. Outstanding mortgage is 700+K. Also owe my parents $100k plus as they helped us with the deposit.

- 7 yo jap car (fully paid)
- maid to take care of baby
- 2.2k per month 40yr mtge, currently fully covered by our cpf.

We spend almost 40k a year in parental allowance/maintenance/deposit repayments. Savings are slightly under 80k per year. We're not exactly well off, but somewhat comfortable anyway.

I can empathize with the poster above. I too tried multiple times to ballot for BTO and SOBF, but always got horrible queue numbers and never even got invited to select a flat. In the end, we gave up and went private instead.

Sounds like what happened to my parents. They bought a property at $300,000 in the crash of 1987, and sold it 20 years later for over $6m. 20-fold profit. And another big profit from other investment properties acquired before the cooling measures kicked in.

I'm sure many here remember the days when you could put just 5% down a property and over-leverage on multiple properties. Hell, you could even sign and otp and flip it a day later for a hundred K profit. With a good eye for property you didn't even need a proper job.

Those were the glory days I guess. No more free lunch for us younger generations.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

His situation is not far different from mine when I was his age, except his is maybe better than mine.

When we married, we applied for HDB flat but was told the waiting time would be 2.5 to 3 years. We waited for 1 year, went for balloting for left-over units but was still unsuccessful. We decided not to wait any more , and decided to plunge head on into private property. We bought a small 2 bedroom unit, paid for it with whatever savings we had and took loans for the remainder.

Then came the children, and we decided to upgrade to a bigger unit. But because we already owned private property we could not buy a new HDB flat any more, so we bought a bigger 3 bedroom private property. We took on a total of 2 loans!

Just before we could off load the smaller apartment, the gulf war started and property price plunged! We decided to hold onto to the unit and rent it out at very low rental. It was quite a terrible belt tightening time for us, and there were months where we had negative savings. We held on to both units for more than 10 years! and living very frugally (except for the car), all our holidays were self drive holidays to M'sia (Cameron, Genting, Taman Negara, Melaka etc). They were cheap and good holidays nonetheless.

Then came the MRT stations announcements, and prices started to recover (no, not recover, but sprang up!). Our small apartment was enbloc giving 3x what we paid for.

We immediately bought another 4 bedroom apartment with the enbloc windfall, moved our now bigger family into it, and rented out the 3 bedroom unit. Within 2 years, the 3 bedroom apartment also went enbloc but the returns not so fantastic.

Again, we used the money to buy yet another condo unit. This time not to stay but for rental income.

Looking back, if you ask me to do it again, I would say no way. It was scary time for us, But sometimes fortune favours the brave. Why? Because when I look at my classmates who went the HDB way, they are still staying in HDB. That's 30 years since we graduated.

Nothing wrong in staying in HDB flats, but they missed the exciting property cycles, and the fortune they could have made. Networth wise, I am guessing that ours are higher primarily because of the private property gains we had. They are letting on that they have around $2m to $3m but we have above $5m

You are lucky. At such a young age, you earn so much and already staying in a D9 condo. My total income together with spouse is only $150k pa. We are now 43/46. Luckily we upgraded from our flat in 2005 and bought a condo for only $530k. We didn't take much loan as we paid down a lot using the sale proceeds of our flat. We have just paid off our condo loan. Our next focus is to build up our stocks portfolio for our retirement. Our net worth today is only $1.5m.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

30yo taking 160k per annum. Wife is 27, taking 80k per annum.

Home is a small 850sqft condo in Dhoby Ghaut, purchased at 1mil three years back and recently transacted (lower floor same size) at 1.2mil, so I guess on a mark to market basis we're up by a bit. Outstanding mortgage is 700+K. Also owe my parents $100k plus as they helped us with the deposit.

- 7 yo jap car (fully paid)
- maid to take care of baby
- 2.2k per month 40yr mtge, currently fully covered by our cpf.

We spend almost 40k a year in parental allowance/maintenance/deposit repayments. Savings are slightly under 80k per year. We're not exactly well off, but somewhat comfortable anyway.

I can empathize with the poster above. I too tried multiple times to ballot for BTO and SOBF, but always got horrible queue numbers and never even got invited to select a flat. In the end, we gave up and went private instead.