Friday, October 9, 2009

How to choose a house? Part 1

It is normal in life that you will be buying a house to stay. Buying a house is not like buying a pair of jean or mobile phone. It is a big commitment in term of money especially in Singapore. If you buy a wrong house, you will not feel good and will feel very stressful when you are not able to sell your house. So what are some considerations when buying a house? For this post, I will talk about the most important consideration, which is location.

You must choose a place that is most convenience for you. If you are married, it will be better to live close to either your spouse parents' house or your parents' house. There are a lot advantages in doing it. Firstly, for any emergency, you can immediately get help. Secondly, if you have a baby, you can easily send your baby to your spouse parents' house or your parents' house for taking care. In this case, you do not need to have a car. Thirdly, you can go to their house for dinner with them every night to share the cost.

The location must be near to transportation hub like bus interchange or MRT (subway). This make travel more convenience when you go to work every day. Of course you need to pay more for such location to have this convenience.

Some calculations that I make if you need to make extra trip to transportation hub:
If additional trip is $1, one day is $2, so twenty years is $2 X 365 X 20 = $14600. Your spouse and you will pay $14600 x 2 = $29200. If include your future children, the cost will be more.
If additional trip is 20min, one day is 40min, so twenty year is 40min x 365 x 20 = 202 days.
So is it more worth to pay more for good location?

The location must be near to amenities. Just imagine you need to buy groceries and go out for a quick meal. It will be very convenience if your house is near to amenities. If these amenities are too far, it will be troublesome to carry the groceries back home especially when you need to take a bus. If you are hungry, you will feel lazy to go out to eat as the food stores are very far, and you will be ended up eating instance noodles.

Make sure you check the surrounding on possible air or noise pollution. Living in places that have air or noise pollution can greatly affect you and your emotion.

Lastly, if your house is near to transportation hub and amenities, it would be easy to sell, or sell high price with profit.

Click here for part 2.

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