The Search For The Perfect Condo

Searching for a new place to live can be both exciting and extremely frustrating. The real estate company that all of us expats are working with picked us up and took us on a tour of Singapore so that we could get acquainted with the different areas of the city. I was really excited to start looking for a place that I could settle into and I could make my own. Call me crazy but I was getting the feeling that the people at my corporate housing didn't really want to take the time to get to know me. 

"Dear Mr. Amisha Narendra Rathod" Really?! 

We got to explore a lot of the city and it helped give me a really good gauge of what Singapore is mapped out like. Most of the districts are within walking distance of each other, and if you don't care to brave the heat and humidity you can take a short MRT ride to wherever you need to go. I'll be the first to admit I don't frequently use public transportation, but it's completely different here. It's air-conditioned, fast and clean largely due to the fact that people aren't allowed to eat or drink on the MRT. We stopped by Chinatown and walked all through the market place. The streets are all lined with shops and strung with lanterns. 

There are a ton of wet markets where people bring in fresh produce, meats, and fish to sell at a fraction of the price that the local grocery stores sell them for. Look at the building from the outside I would have never guessed that there was a whole market inside.

I double checked with our broker to see if it is safe to buy produce from the market and she assured me that both locals and expats frequent the wet markets because everything is fresh and it helps out the local businesses. 

After the wet market we walked by the biggest and oldest Hindu temple in Singapore. I thought it was odd that the Hindu temple was in the middle of Chinatown and not closer to Little India. However, I was told that when Singapore was originally being developed, Chinatown was not expected to grow and expand as far out as it did. There are big beautiful statues all around the facade of the building and the front is adorned with a massive depiction of a part of the Ramayana. 

After Chinatown, we took a ride to the East Coast and walked around the beaches. It was quite shocking that as clean as Singapore is, the beaches were not tended to and there was trash littered everywhere! Looking out past the shore there were a ton of cargo ships waiting to pull in to harbor. 

We ended the day by quickly visiting Holland Village, Robertson Quay, and Dempsey. Dempsey was a really quaint pocket of restaurants and shops that I think I'll be spending a lot of time in. There aren't any residential buildings in the area, but it's a short taxi ride and really close to the Botanical Gardens. 

I had made an appointment to tour condos on Tuesday and was excited to get the ball rolling. The first couple of units the broker showed me were completely awful. I thought to myself, why would anyone in their right mind want to live in a place that smell like old food and has furniture from the 80's? I finally had to show her pictures of my old place for her to understand that I did not want to waste my time or hers touring places that were not close to my standard. I asked her if any of the places we had left to see looked like my old place and she said that they were not comparable. She started making calls to other brokers and setting appointments up as we drove around. The first building that I saw was in the financial district and was exactly what I wanted. It's a brand new high rise called The Clift and is only 4 months old. The condo that I liked has never been lived in. We went and toured two more buildings and I couldn't stop thinking about the condo I saw at The Clift. I asked to see the unit one more time and ended up making an offer that night and the owner accepted it! Now I just need my work visa to be finalized before I am able to move in to the unit. I am getting a bit worried because I'm not sure how long the owner will hold the unit for me before he puts it back on the market. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my work visa comes through soon and that I can get out of corporate housing and in to my new condo!