How To Buy Property In Singapore

Thinking of buying your first home in Singapore? Don’t worry; here is a list of to dos in helping you along.

1. Define your Budget
Budget works like a road map especially for first time buyer. There is a lot to do at this stage as you plan to own the roof over your head, instead of paying rent to landlord. Do your math; as a guideline, Singapore central bank has minimum requirement of 10 percent of purchase price as down payment. This is what you should aim to work for. We would recommend try to save even more than that.

2. Plan your Saving
If you have just been getting by every month, financial wise, try to discipline yourself on cutting down your expenses in order to build up your down payment fund. No doubt, you may have to sacrifice some little luxuries along the way, but you would be making progress towards achieving your first significant financial goal. So live a more prudent life and go for it.

3. Go House Search
Once you have worked out a monetary range of properties you are likely able to afford, check out the internet, the newspaper classifieds, new housing development projects, or anywhere that could point you to your dream house. Once you chance upon a house that catches your attention, make arrangement to do house inspection. You should take this opportunity to see as wide a range of properties as possible so you are in a good position to make comparisons.

4. Check the Neighborhood
While your main intention is to meet the housing needs of yourself and probably your family, there can be other factors that you might want to consider, e.g. location of the property, convenient access to public amenities and availability of health care institutions.

5. Enlist Professional Help
Sometimes it may be a huge task for you to tackle all these pre-purchase activities. You can always seek way from the industry professionals, like personal financial adviser, real estate agents or even property consultants. In this way, you make sure that you are not short of industry opinions of trends and latest price movement.

6. Beware of Property Agent
Should you decide to engage a local property agent as your buyer representative, he or she can potentially save you a lot of time as the agent would now act on your behalf to search for your ideal house. However please be cautious here as Singapore agents have been known for being erratic so make sure you are always on top of the situation.

7. Negotiation
Once you have found a property, or two, that matches your expectation, conduct your researches thoroughly; like what is the likely price of the property based on past transactions in the neighborhood, how conducive it is now for property investment, etc. Make sure you are armed with all relevant knowledge as you get the negotiation underway and at the same time, you should start shopping for a banker who is willing to fund this property.

8. Find a Bank
Check out the different bank rates on offer and your objective here is to find out the lowest interest rate on the maximum amount of loan disbursed. Find out the necessary qualification criteria for the interested loan as well. And after you decide on a certain loaner bank, always read the terms and conditions before you sign the agreement.

9. Sign the Sales and Purchase Agreement
Once you are sure that all the above have been dutifully carried out, then you just go ahead and execute the purchase. And welcome to the club of home owners.

Mindy Yong 杨雯诗

CEA Registration Number : R021232Z

Tel: (+65) 91002985
Fax: (+65) 64021826

mindy@mindyyong.com

KF Property Network Pte Ltd
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