from the crib to the obsessions and everything in between...: The Genesis

My husband & I purchased our home in June 2012 (I think so). We started making application since our engagement in September 2011 and it was only the 3rd or 4th attempt that we were given an opportunity to purchase a home. Well, I always say that the home chose me rather than I chose the home because while I had a queue number to select the flats, the number was bigger than the available flats. This meant that I would only get to select the remaining flats that others before me did not want. I did not have the option of purchasing a flat from the open market. In the 2011/2012 period, resale home prices were expensive as there was a huge demand for housing and a shortage of public homes available. I desired very much to live by ourselves after marriage but we could not afford the cash over valuation (COV) of resale flats which easily ran up to 5 digit! Build-to-Order (BTO) flats was the only option we had as it also made no financial sense to rent a home till we got our own.

And yes, we chose Punggol (the extreme North East of Singapore). The comments I frequently received when I tell my friends my home will be at Punggol are "why is everybody staying there?", "It's going to be so populated", "why so far?", "all the young couples stay there" etc. Well... I did not like the location of my in law's house, and my husband did not like the location of my mother's house. So the only place we could think of and agree on is Punggol since so many of our good friends bought their home there too. If you can't stay near your family, stay near your friends - this was the "principle" we worked on. And we are really very very close to these couple of friends who will also be moving to different parts of Punggol about the same time as us.

The building project for my home is due to complete in the 2nd quarter of 2015. Looking at its progress, perhaps I could get it in March 2015. *fingers crossed*

17 December 2012