invisible

Why would anyone spend their time with you knowing that you have no intention to rent a unit?

You can't appear at a building 'to see it' - you need to be accompanied by the agent.

evergrn

Okay, thanks.
In America, many rental residence complexes have on-site offices where you can just walk in and request a tour of the complex. I had a feeling it wasn't like that in Singapore, and I guess what you're saying confirms it.

invisible

You are talking to former Californian here, all good.
You assumption is that rental market in Singapore is set up the same way as in US - when large development companies are building apartment complexes to rent them out afterwards. It is not the case.

99% of apartments on rental market are privately owned by individuals. They are leased by owners via RE agents - think about selling/buying property in US and apply that concept to rental, well, except loan/mortgage. Both sides have agents to negotiate deal and in most cases it is impossible to dial directly with the owner bypassing the agent - they simply won't talk to you.

So you first need to either find a unit which you are interested in, or hire an agent who will show units to you and obviously, if agent knows that you don't live or plan to live here, they won't engage. (And don't get me started about local RE agents. I would trust word of a drug dealer from West Oakland more, than local agent, especially when you are freshly arrived foreigner - they will try to screw you over on every possible occasion.)

There are also serviced apartments for short term (no more than 2 month) lease but they are very expensive - start from $250/day.

evergrn

Thanks for the additional insight, invisible.

That's too bad that real estate agents over there are like that.

invisible

Trust me, in China it is worse.

But we are diverting from the topic. If have time, you can go to Japanese and Chinese gardens, but I would put it as second/third priority.

dsgtc0408

To evergrn (and due respect to invisible), suggest the following for looking at housing.

1. Make an appointment to check out a serviced apartment just to see what it's like. You should be able to do this at fairly short notice. I'd try Frasier Suites because they're probably the biggest serviced apartment provider here. Yes, their rates are sky-high but it's good to see what the most expensive places would look like (ie establish baseline impression of the high end).

2. Check Craigslist Singapore to look for what might be available as short term rentals (eg one year term or less). Many short term leases are for individual rooms, but there should be some whole units available. You may need to buy a prepaid SIM for your phone so you can have a local cell number for folks to contact you. invisible is right about real estate agents and how they're most likely not going to be interested in working with you, so your ability to dissemble is going to be important.

My thinking is that it's good for you to see what local real estate looks like. For all you know, the configuration of local apartments might be so different from your expectations that by itself it's an immediate deal breaker in terms of working here.

Presumably you're started your trip. Hopefully this comment isn't too late.

SQ319

Hey evergrn, hope this isn't too late for you as I've just returned from a trip.

1. Rental market - I am local here, so cannot help with this. Like what both said, u need to liaise with a RE agent to bring you around with seeing rental apartments. Besides dsgtc0408's recommendation for Frasers, you can also check out Ascott, which is also a very big player in the serviced apartment market here. There is a Somerset Serviced Apartment (mid range brand managed by Ascott) located at Liang Court. You may walk to the reception and ask to see a family sized unit. Also the Ascott website has floorplans of their units and sizes etc, which may be useful for you.

2. If it's raining, then you can consider doing the River Safari, as it's 90% sheltered, compared to the Zoo which is mostly outdoors. If the rain is not heavy, then do the Zoo. Otherwise, do the River Safari.

3. You still can do the promenade at Marina Bay, but probably not the sky deck...

evergrn

Thank you very much to dsgtc0408 and SQ319 for the additional info and for all the past help. I've been in Singapore for two days now and alas am getting ready to fly out early tomorrow morning. Getting a chance to see housing firsthand would've been ideal, but oh well. Most important things were to get a sense of the place, see my wife's reaction, and tour the school. We got all of that done, plus provide some fun for the kids. Again, I am very grateful for all of your advice... definitely helped us get the most out of our short stay.

I will definitely check out the websites for those serviced apartments. Serviced apts will be way out of our budget, but it'll be good to get an idea of the types of layout that exists in Singapore. It seems like decent condominiums will also be very difficult to afford unless you go a bit far from the center. Then again, the area out west near the Japanese school on Clementi Rd looked very nice.

Despite the poor weather forecast on paper, the reality was different and we sort of lucked out with the weather. We really didn't get rained on other than ~30min yesterday (and that didn't affect us since we happened to be under the roof at a show at the zoo). Yesterday we went to the zoo... got there just before 9am, left around 1.45pm. I think we managed to see just about everything, except we only did one show. Kids fed the elephants and loved the splash park. I think the zoo would've been difficult on a day where it constantly rained. But on a day that features 1 or 2 patches of short rain, it would be just fine. There are many resting areas and show areas that are covered. Also, the zoo is brilliantly designed to help visitors cope with heat... not only the many covered areas and the splash park, but also many places with fans blowing. The zoo was not as expansive as we'd anticipated, and so we were okay without using the tram. Anyways, what an amazing place! The best zoo ever. Monkeys were right next to us as soon as we entered, the animals' manmade habitat blended so well with the natural lush landscape, and the Fragile Forest enclosure was amazing.

Then we headed back to the hotel and rested a bit. Then headed down to the Merlion. Walked around the bay over to MBS. Headed up to the sky deck. Beautiful weather. The view got better and better as we approached sunset. So we ended up sticking around till just before 7pm, then hurried back to the hotel to sleep. The sky deck is expensive, but I thought it was definitely worth it.

We checked out Liang Court and Takashimaya/Kinokuniya. Couldn't believe that you can get things like Royce's chocolates and many esoteric regional Japanese things here. Even Cold Storage had loads of Japanese things. I guess the only bad thing is the price of Japanese goods... somehow I expected the price to be ~similar to HK, but it's definitely pricier (almost same as US).

We ate at the Food Opera. Had char kway teow as recommended... very flavourful, very good. Had Hainese chicken rice, which was amazing. We also tried the coffee at Ya Kun as recommended... you're right, we've never had coffee like that before anywhere else. Very sweet with the condensed milk, but definitely very good.

We ended up taking taxi everywhere. We took MRT just once... I'm very thickheaded and couldn't figure out how to use the ticket machine. Luckily there was an employee standing there to help, and she basically did everything for us. I was prewarned that taxis would be hard to get without reservation. So we prebooked most of the time. I couldn't figure out the surcharge and the price discrepancies each time. I prebooked a peak-time taxi from Hilton to the Zoo... figured there'd be a significant markup due to on-call service and the peak time. Yet our 1.45pm return taxi (supposedly no surcharge) ended up costing the same. Then the taxi from Hilton to Clementi had the upfront surcharge of $8, way higher than any of the other rides.

Orchard Rd is decked out in all sorts of Xmas lighting right now. I think it's great that people here would take the time and effort to put up such elaborate lighting/ornaments all up and down that long street.

Two days is too short to get a full idea of what it'd be like to live here. And Singapore is just one of a few options we're looking at, and we've got quite a while to decide on things. Obviously I have to do more research. But the city definitely left a very positive impression on us.

Hoyaheel

Thank you for mentioning this - we head to SIN tomorrow and I've been bummed about missing the Thanksgiving Day parade & NYC lighting of the Christmas tree (I don't live in NYC - just have always watched on tv) I'll make sure we head to Orchard Rd after dark to see the lights!!!

dsgtc0408

Hoyaheel, the weather forecast for NY on Thanksgiving is going to be wet and grey; seems there's already some nasty car accidents in upstate NY already. (I was at the Macy's Thanksgiving parade one year as a child - awfully cold. Watched on TV all the years after that. ) If you can handle Singapore's heat, you'll be happy you left this nasty weather behind.

evergrn - The Orchard Road displays are elaborate, but what would you say if I told you the displays are left up for Chinese New Year, just with a little freshening up to make it CNY festive during the in-between time? Singapore is definitely not a place that wastes things!

I'm happy that you were able to get a lot of stuff done and many of your questions answered while you were here. If you end up moving here for work, suggest you focus on the Clementi area. More central parts of Singapore are expat geared; if you feel you can handle the more local lifestyle in Singapore's western suburbs, then there's no reason to pay the extra costs (housing and otherwise) in the more central parts of town. If you've got any future questions please feel free to pm me.

gilbertaue

Great "close" to this thread and glad to hear that all went well. Yes, even for us locals the taxi fares are sometimes a mystery and hence why I use UBER all the time.

The Christmas lightup you see is not only limited to Christmas and Orchard Road. For the Indian festival Deepavali, Serangoon Road is lit up. For Chinese New Year the whole Chinatown is lit up. For the Muslim Hari Raya the Geylang area is lit up - certainly no expenses spared.

SQ319

evergrn, happy to see that your trip went mostly as planned. Clementi is indeed a very nice neighbourhood with a few newer condominiums near the Japanese school, and several more a few minutes drive away. Also, there are no lack of Japanese amenities with a Japanese Supermarket (Isetan), Bakery (Johan), Bake Cheese Tart (Kinotoya) and several restaurants (Tsukada Nojo, Boteyju, Ippudo, etc) located in Jurong, another neighbourhood 10-minute drive away, saving you (or your wife) a drive into town or Liang Court.

I grew up in Clementi and have always been living in the west, so my views are (slightly) biased, but feel free to PM if you have any questions.

evergrn

Thank you again to you both! The people at the Japanese school highly recommended Clementi, as well. I may definitely need to take you guys up on your offer for additional advice down the road. There's a lot to think about and I don't know how it's going to be working there, but we could definitely see ourselves living there, and so we'll see what happens.

That's really awesome. Really speaks to the spirit and the vibrance of the city.

Although I did not walk the entire length of the Orchard Rd to be able to give the most definitive advice, nonetheless I might suggest heading towards the area around the intersection of Orchard Rd and Paterson Rd (near the Orchard subway station). In addition to the ornaments/lighting on the street, the area in front of ION Orchard's entrance is decked out very impressively.