Sibu New House For Sale

Jalan Teku, Taman Meriview, 96000 Sibu, Sarawak, Malaysia.

New Intermediate Terrace/Link House for Sale at RM 300,000   2 storey, land area: 193 sqm.

Under Construction, expected completion date: December 2012.   Viewing can be arranged at Sibu, contact me for details at jamesjy_hong@yahoo.com  

Why I give Horizon Hill a miss ?

I had done some studies about Horizon Hill and almost want to ink the deal last weekend but now I decided to give it a miss, at least as for now.

It is a new launch at the Green Precinct. A whopping 35' x 80' size of 2 storey Cluster home. Cluster home is like a semi-detached house without backyard, that's how I name it. The built up area is 3,204 sqft, and land size is 2,800 sqft. Price is RM1,117,800. Beautiful home no doubt. I love the size and the layout.

The only reason I want to buy Horizon Hill landed residential is to enjoy the lifestyle of spacious green fields and also hope that my parents will stay closer to us rather than staying at Sarawak. I still hope AirAsia is going to launch a direct flight from Sibu to Singapore! So, this investment going to be self-stay, definitely not going for rental. For self-stay, of course it has to be renovated nicely with all the furnitures, that would come be RM150,000-RM200,000 easily based on the size of the house.

So, bear in minds, we have to pay monthly RM 200 for the security, and RM 150 for the facilities usage.

Many of us are able to afford such a home because Malaysia bank is happily giving you a 90% loan as long as you are not holding more than 2 properties in Malaysia (that are still under loan servicing). To buy such a beautiful home, all you need to put is a 10% downpayment, that's RM111,780 plus 3% stamp fees, which is RM 33,534 , total RM 145, 314= SGD 59,000 , we have to convert to Singapore dollars as 70% of the buyers are Singaporean, that's the majority crowds here and the rest of the 30%, most of them are also working in Singapore. So, literally, Horizon Hills are almost filled with people who work in Singapore... so, no doubt, you just need to pay SGD 59K and seal the deal, sound easy. Now, the nightmare comes.

90% loan.

Let's talk about 90% loan, let's just focus at the first 5 years interest, if you loan 90%, the interest is for only 5 years are whopping close to RM 200,000.
Even though you reduce the loan to 80%, 70% and 60%, the figure are:
80% - interest RM 175,000
70% - interest RM 155,000
60% - interest RM 135,000

For me, it is a self stay property, I don't have rental income of course, and these are the numebrs I must ready to fork out just for the interest. And guess what, the calculation above is using the best rate of 4.1% now, we all know BLR rate can rise and fall, but next chance is going to be UP .

So, if you are buying Horizon Hill for self-stay, take note on the big numbers, even though you are trying very hard to reduce the downpayment to 80%, the number is still RM 175,000 for the first 5 years. Maybe you want to sell the house , then, you also need to take note the real estate property gain tax in Malaysia. The thing is this, you can imagine the property price to shot up , but how much ? Remember, Horizon Hill prices had gone up almost double as 100%, what make you think it will go up another 100% easily. I heard many people said, real estate is an asset to hedge the inflation, but take this example, RM 1.1 mil + 0.2 mil (renovation) + 0.2 mil (interest) = RM 1.5 million after 5 years, my breakeven point is RM 1.5 million ! not to mention the small cost that you need to pay every month. Again, all these money is only for me to enjoy maximum during the weekend only. Because it is the weekend home. I am not going to drive in and out from JB to Singapore every weekday.

Next reason is probably a wise one from my wife.

For those new young couples that are having kids or going to plan to have a kid. Your kids school is important, ESPECIALLY the primary school. I like the west, hence the good school in the West is only Rulang Primary school at Lakeside. I am inspired by my ex-colleague from China, they are Singapore PR, and purprosely bought a flat at block 518, right in front of Rulang primary, and after doing all the volunteer work and some lucks in the ballot, they actually got a seat at the primary school. Such a good news for them. But remember, rules had changed.

As K is going to become Singaporean, and the new Singapore rules is making sure that every single Singaporean kids apply to the particular school must be filled first , or they also need to go through ballot, then if there are still empty seats, it will be Singapore PR ballot time. So, if you are Singapore PR, just don't dream to put your kids into the good school, almost 0% chance. That's one of the tactics that Singapore government force you to become citizen. Your house location is also important !

We are actually thinking either we buy a private condo at Parc Vista, or move our HDB closer to the school, if moving the HDB house, it is almost a No Go to buy a self-stay home at Malaysia now, the rule is once you sell the HDB house, and wanna buy a new one, you have to let go your self-stay home, and of course also my NusaHeights condo, even though it is for rental. So, to buy a HDB near lakeside is fine, in fact, once K becomes citizen, we can also get government subsidised of S$30K to buy another resale flat.

Again, these are all because of my personal commitments and reasons why I give HH a miss, might not be relevant to everybody. As I said, if you buy it for self-stay in JB, and you are driving in and out, that's not a problem, just take note on the interest, and hope that it will become RM 2 million soon... for rental, no comments, as I am not the type of person who want to renovate nicely and rent to others.

For NusaHeights, it is totally different ball games, the rental is enough to sustain the payment + interest, and best of all, the price appreciation had already kicked in. Probably another similar condo investment makes sense for me. For a weekend home for me, I will pause as for now. I am sure Nusa Jaya will be a bright shining star, just plan your financial properly, it's a home anyway, you still need to make sure your spouse, childrens, education, children insurance. I repeat Children insurance, it is very very important, start it young, I will say, start it at age 0, you won't regret it. It is a must.

Updated on July 29, 2014

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We decided to bring our kid to study at Clementi instead of Lakeside as we had purchased a private residential property at Clementi instead. :) 

Who say credit card is not good ?

We often hear the financial advisor that it is best not to use credit card but to pay items in full cash because this is the best way to control your spending and not stretching beyond your spending limits. For those people who is able to control yourself, it is definitely not true for the above statement. Use credit card wisely and you will know you gain a lot and be happy planning a strategy to use the credit card you have !

Based on my limited knowledge on all the credit cards in Singapore, I would like to introduce some credit cards that I personally think it works out perfectly for me.

(1) The best credit card you should use every day is UOB One card. There are always some rules but you should be able to meet the criteria easily. Firstly, you must swipe a minimum of 3 transactions per month and also a minimum monthly spent of S$300 per month continuously for 3 months (that's not very hard, right? ) and you will get cash rebate of S$30.

Of course, there are many ways to plan your monthly payment, you can consolidate all your payment (insurance, phone bills, oversea spending, etc.) If you can hit the amount of S$800 per month with the above criteria, you get S$80, and the 3rd categorory is S$1,500 per month. That's 3.3% cash rebate ! Go and calculate your redemption value per dollars spent, it is always in the range of 0.5% and below, definitely not over 1%. If you want to hit the second or third category, you can issue a supplementary credit card for your spouse to consolidate the spending in monthly basis (we are not encouraging you to spend more in order to get the cash rebate, the key point is consolidation).

For me, once I know I hit the S$800 per month, I will immediately stop using this card and change to OCBC Robinson Card (why ? tell you below later at point 3).

(2) The second best card you should own is Standard Chartered Manhattan Platinum card because the card is very beautiful (not only that). Ask yourself a question, do you ever swipe a S$3,000 item in a year ? If you do, get this card. I can give you some good example, like buying a good mattress, a TV , furniture, consolidate your insurance payment in annual term instead of monthly term (in fact annual term insurance is slightly cheaper than monthly term), NATAS fair booking, air ticket booking, oversea spending, or paying a downpayment of JB condo, Horizon Hills (2%, 8%), etc.

This card works perfectly if you spend above S$3,000 in a month, because the cash back is 5% , their second category of $1,000-$2,999 is only 1%, I rather go and use UOB one card. Hence, the key here is, buying the big item purchase. If you have one, use this card, since you hit the S$3,000 that particular month, make sure you don't stop it, might as well consolidate the credit card into this card until it hit S$4,000, as the cap is S$200 per quarter. My strategy is , use the card only for one month and hit S$4,000 and stop using the card for the next two months, and just wait to get the cash rebate of S$200, the rest of the spending, goes to OCBC Robinson card.

For me, it is easy to hit S$3,000 sometimes, as I need to travel once in a month, the hotel, air ticket spending can hit that figure easily especially the Europe business trip.

(3) My third card, OCBC Robinson credit card. Personally, I like Robinson departmental store, and you only need to collect S$4,800 spending (no restriction like above, same as other normal credit card) to redeem S$30 dollars Robinson voucher. If you take a look at normal credit card redemption, it is always at least S$2300 spent for $10 voucher (be it a departmental store voucher , petrol voucher, NTUC voucher, etc.). So, make the calculation yourself, S$2,300 x 3 = S$6,900 spent, then you can only redeem a S$30 worth item. With OCBC robinson credit card, that's only S$4800. Of course there are more good things about this card, like free card park at raffles city center, more discount during the Sales period, etc.

(4) Last but not least, there are some good credit card target on specific spending, like my POSB Everyday card, I use it for my car petrol, together with my SPC U Card, that's a total cash rebate up to 17% ! And this POSB Everyday card good for HDB season parking of 3% rebate, and also the SP services, Town council monthly rebate, etc. For these targetted store rebate, you should just go ahead and use the particular card , instead of using the above credit card mentioned.

There are many more credit cards in the market, like Citibank card, 2% rebate on Giant purchase, etc. I recently just redeem 17 pieces of Carltex Petrol voucher of $10, I found out, this HSBC card is no longer my beloved card, as I have found the best credit card  mentioned above.

After all these good benefits, to get a credit card like Standard Chartered credit card, they even give you free cash of S$80 each in the card, hey, what more you want to ask for ? In conclusion, plan carefully, you will know credit card spending is good and fun, don't you think so ? at least for me, it is.

p/s: oh yeah, I read some people posting about redeem the credit card point to Krisfyler mileage point, for me, don't waste time on this, first of all, the SIA ticket fuel surcharge is so expensive, with that surcharge, I can purchase a complete full fare budget airline ticket ! I am quoting the airfare from Singapore to Hong Kong, Taiwan and even Japan. There is no saving at all ! For me, it is way faster to just collect the Krisfyler mileage point by flying SIA during the business trip instead of converting the credit card points...

Let's talk about investment-linked insurance

We all know it is good to start an insurance at early age. I found out an interesting point about investment-linked insurance this morning that I would like to share with all of you.

First of all, the example I am going to give is Prudential PruFirst Gift, this is actually a PruLink Protection, it is like an investment-linked insurance. You have to tell them which funds you want to park your money , and in what percentage. For me, I channel 50% monthly premium to PruLink Emerging Markets Fund and 50% monthly premium to PruLink Singapore Growth Fund and these are medium to high risk funds.

With monthly premium of S$200, you actually can get your kid sum assured to S$200,000.
Here is the interesting point, when your kid reaches age 19 (that's when he needs to go to college or university), you need a sum of money for his education fees, this fund now comes handy. Assuming the funds performance is 9% (it is possible if Singapore and Emerging countries are doing well in the next 20 years).

Let say it achieves S$71,100 as what Prudential has projected for 9% , you can actually withdrawn cash S$70,100, and leave just S$1,000 in the insurance, and this insurance is still valid with sum assured S$200,000 to your kid...

My opinion is, you never need to cancel this investment-linked insurance, you can just treat this as your kid "whole life insurance", the only draw back is you or he himself (when he starts to work) has to keep paying monthly premium of $200 per month, but then, remember this monthly premium is the money you buy funds, you can take it back anytime, but don't surrender the policy as this insurance has sum assured with S$200,000, it is good to treat it like a traditional insurance plan, and this is good for your kids generation to benefit.

I am not an insurance agent, I don't sell insurance, but I think this is good plan, and now I have to find out more about my current AIA Arcons of Asia investment-linked insurance. I am still learning.

How much interest you pay for your housing loan ? (Revision 02)

Revision 02 (last paragraph): updated on November 5, 2014

I took 80% housing loan 2 years back for my new home with 3-Year Fixed Rate Package from Maybank Singapore (1.6%, 2.6% & 2.9%) in June 2009 with loan tenure of 20 years and it turns out to be a bad bet. I paid S$18,800.96 interest (until June 2012) for the loan amount of $284,000 , and that's effective interest of 6.62%!

It is my mistake to extend my original loan tenure of 10 years to 20 years. My intention is to bet on the equities market and additional investment at real estate in Singapore. It is not a good bet as for now. I have reviewed carefully and decided to change some of my strategies next year, especially housing loan.

It is easy to look back 2 years ago of what you should have done:
(1) I should have sticked to my original housing loan tenure of 10 years
(2) I should have selected the 3-months SIBOR pegged housing loan packages
(3) Even with equities investment, I should have followed my original plan of Starhub single investment at S$1.91 andd keep it with dividend yield of 10.47%.

It is time to look forward! I have done the survey on the home loan rates available at Singapore. I will place a certain lump sum downpayment next year June (re-finance) to reduce the housing loan to S$169,447. With this amount, here are the big picture.

CIMB 3-Year Fixed Rate Package stands out among the peers, with fixed rate of 0.98%, 1.38% and 1.98%, the total interested paid for 3 years is only $3,235.49, and that's a mere 1.91% effective interest that you pay for the loan amount. I will be out of debt at age 35, sound like a good plan.

By then, year 2015, I hope the equities market is on the bull cycle, and that will be really double bonus for me. :) Let's plan and God will take care the rest.








Take note, the lump sum down payment during re-finance next year is about 32% of the remaining loan balance.

If I refinance with another 20 years, the total interest will be $106,016 (42.5% of loan balance). If I refinance with 10 years, the total interest will be $37,019 (14.8% of loan balance). That is one of the reason why I want to reduce the remaining loan and the interest is then greatly reduced to only 1.91% !

Take note, due to CPF OA contribution rate change, the monthly OA contribution has now increased from $1,035.51 to $1,150.20 , you can wipe them off for housing loan monthly payment.

Typical Singaporean (in my case) who takes CPF 2.6% loan will enjoy much lower interst in the long run due to the low interest rate of fix 2.6% throughout entire 20 years, but it is still a big amount of money. We are talking about 30% of interest.

If they take 80% loan and spread 20 years (which many Singaporen did that or even 30, 35 years), the total interest is $80,511 (28.3% of loan amount).

Updated on November 5, 2014

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Looking back at the blog written 3 years ago, I am happy to say we have fully paid our HDB housing loan in June, 2014.

Once you have cleared your HDB housing loan, you will receive this important document - The Land Titles Act Lease document. 

You have to pay S$450 lawyer fees while you do the HDB housing loan redemption.