Hello to my dear readers!

I'm sorry that i have not been updating for a week. Argh. Super busy calling up MOE and tour agency and tutoring those pesky children. Grrrr. Kids are so R.U.D.E nowadays. Tutee no 1 is getting more and more grouchy;i don't know why. Probably due to the fact that she has spent her first 2 weeks of the school hols finishing up her school hw. BTW,im quite impressed with her this time. She actually FINISHED ALL her holiday hw(which is really A LOT)during the first 2 wks. WOW. And including tuition hw. *applause* But,she has been behaving grouchily this wk lo. Cant stand her. She groaned,moaned,complained,grumbled etc at the slightest thing. Grrrr. She gets on my nerves whenever she is grouchy. And Tutee no 4 and 5 are darn rude. Both of them are not yet 7 yrs old but they are behaving as though the whole world owes them something. -.- Especially Tutee no 4. Totally a spoilt brat. Even her cousins and brother cannot stand her sometimes. So much so that they don't want to play with her sometimes. OOPS. =X Mum said i shouldnt say that cause there may be retribution;that is,next time my kids will be spoilt brats. I tell ya,if my kids are going to be naughty,disrespectful little brats,i will definitely spank them ok.

Enough of the kids. Grrr.....where did all the MOE ppl that im looking for disappear to? Eh,don't delay my appointment leh.

My Taiwan trip is most probably going to be a confirmed departure. Oh Yeah!

And oh,i need to get that Sony DSC-T10 camera soon. Ahh...money money. I see no money leh. =(

p/s. No matter where i go to for tuition,i see ppl playing mahjong. Tutee no 1's mum and aunt play mahjong;so does Tutee no 5's ah ma and ah gong. Eh,i wanna learn how to play mahjong leh. Can any kind soul teach me,pls?

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Record-touching prices for 5-room, exec flats as en bloc sellers use windfall
By Johnson Choo, TODAY | Posted: 15 June 2007 1057 hrs

SINGAPORE: At least two housing board flats were sold in recent weeks at prices not seen since the zenith of the property boom in 1996.

A flat in Jalan Membina, in the Tiong Bahru area, changed hands for $675,000 — an all-time record for a five-room HDB unit.

During the 1996 market peak, the highest price fetched was only close to $600,000. Last weekend, an executive apartment near Braddell MRT station in Toa Payoh went for $680,000, according to real estate agency PropNex — a whopping $150,000 or 28.3 per cent premium over the official valuation. The price-tag was also close to the $700,000 record set 11 years ago.

In both cases, the buyers had recently cashed in on en bloc sales of their private property homes.

But other flat-owners now thinking of offering their homes for sale should heed PropNex chief executive officer Mohamed Ismail’s caution. “It is wrong for all HDB owners to expect such a windfall, thinking that the market has moved,” he said.

The demand boom for bigger flats appears limited to certain areas — similar five room units in Yishun and Bedok are selling at about $310,000 — and property experts say, is primarily the result of the flurry of private estates undergoing en bloc sales, netting unit owners in excess of $1 million each.

In the case of the Jalan Membina flat, the buyer was a man in his 60s flushed with cash after he sold his condominium apartment in Jurong in a collective sale. According to the Chinese press, he paid in cash in full.

PropNex agent Tan Siang Kook, who brokered the deal, said the buyer was impressed with the Japanese-style renovations to the six-year-old flat. The man closed the deal after just one viewing, at an open house on May 31 — after negotiating down the original price tag of $700,000.

“The en bloc people appear to be downgrading after spending fruitless weeks looking for alternative accommodation,” said Mr Colin Tan, Chesterton International’s head of research and consultancy. “They need accommodation fast and cheap, if they are putting down money on another development that is still under construction.”

Another group of buyers are those above age 50 or retirees who benefited from an en bloc sale, Mr Mohamed Ismail said. Even with the handsome deal, most would not be able to afford a similar replacement unit on the private property market without coming up with extra cash.

So, it is “only logical” for them to downgrade to a good-quality HDB flat and have cash in their pockets, he added.

Meanwhile, PropNex’s Mr Tan expects more keen interest in an open house this weekend for another five-room unit at Block 121, Kim Tian Road.

While HDB estimates show a 1.2 percent increase in the price index for the first quarter of this year, resale demand has centred on the five-room and executive flats. In stark contrast, a year ago, such bigger flats could not be sold even at valuation price — with HDB downgraders then snapping up three and four-room flats to take advantage of the low prices.

“We are seeing an increased interest in the newer five-room and executive HDB properties that are five to seven years old, located very close to the city in areas like Tiong Bahru and Queenstown, with easy access to MRT stations," said Mr Eugene Lim, assistant vice president of ERA Singapore.

Such units are generally valued at about $530,000. The recent record prices “will have some uplifting effect on other units in the area” said Mr Lim — but it could be just a one-off buying trend driven by en bloc sales, he added. - TODAY/fa

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This is the THIRD time in less than 2 mths that i see my housing estate being featured in the newspapers for being the most popular housing estate - in the sense that 4-rm and 5-rm units were sold at sky-high prices,record-breaking amount. I am so P.R.O.U.D to live in my housing estate!!!!! =D You irritating property agents,stop calling us up to ask if we wanna sell our house. WE ARE NOT. Shoo! Get out of our lives,you property agents! Grrr.