For most young Singaporeans,
We’re advised to get a BTO as our 1st home.
It makes a lot of sense.
We were lucky and got a good unit for a 5 room HDB at Tampines for about $540,000. Current prices are around $700-$800k of of now.
And while we were pretty happy about the unit.
The wait is a killer.
4–5 years for most BTOS.
We were 2 years into the wait and things got harder.
We realized that because we were staying with my partner’s parents, we had little control over how we’d run the house.
Simple things like where we placed a towel or forgetting to replace toilet paper became bigger problems. Even things like which friends to invite and whether that fits with schedules became very restrictive. The lack of freedom to do whatever we wanted, when we wanted crept in and tensions were high.
After lots of consideration we decided that renting could be a possible solution for us.
We agonized over the rent and did the math on our salaries. Eventually we decided that we could afford it + still save if we cut our expenses like food and didn’t go out as much. PLUS I was grabbing a lot to work, if we lived somewhere closer to work, we’d save money on that too.
After looking at 12–15 places, we started off in a really small 2 bedder (600ft) in Shunfu, at $1,350 a month.
It wasn’t much, but it was home.
There was aircon in the living and bedroom, pretty well ID-ed. Most importantly, it was close to the MRT. A 3 minute walk to Marymount and 2 minutes to the famous Shunfu Market hawker centre. The owners also allowed dogs (we have a very naughty black pug living with us).
$1,350/month for what we found was an AMAZING deal.
Not sure if we still could find something like that in today’s market.
Considered ourselves blessed and had to put the work in for it (please do your due diligence and look through lots of houses before making a decision on rent, we built a comprehensive 1 page checklist with all our considerations in relation to our salaries).
Key benefits from renting vs living with folks (with partner):
- We could focus a lot more when we were working (proper table/chair setup, with power plugs etc)
- We spent a lot more time together watching shows, going on dates etc since we were really near lots of malls, eateries. Lots of cheap and good food, grocers, movie places (Bishan, Junction 8).
- We could go for long nature walks at Macritchie reservoir (15 minutes walk) with our pug. We also walked around private estates at Windsor Park, living thomson is amazing, just abit warm. Walks are FREE!
- We could invite friends over, play games, socialize, cook dinners etc (pre-covid).
Did our FA (financial advisor) give us hell for renting when we could have saved the money? Yes. “If you could save this xxxx, we could invest in xxxx”. “Can you tahan another 3 years” etc. We really did our best to consider.
But was it worth it?
Hell yes!
That extra $850+ each a month (living expense like utility, basic groceries etc) bought us a lot more freedom and space with each other.
We also learnt a lot about renting, living on our own and being independent.
On top of that, we learnt what we wanted in our future home. Saw each other’s bad habits and adapted to each other’s lifestyle. Something that we couldn’t do/ were blind to when all our household needs were being taken care of.
I write this to inform more young Singaporean couples to consider their options. There can be significant, intangible benefits from living independently.
Note: This doesn’t mean renting is for everyone.
It’s still a significant expense.
Shelling out $1.7k a month to put into someone else’s pockets is really no fun.
But if you have a clear, well thought out checklist (including financial considerations), renting could really help you learn more about your relationship.
It’s an investment in yourself and your partner to “calibrate” your relationship.
Warning: You might not like what you see.
I’ve heard of couples living together and then splitting up cos they couldn’t deal with each other. It’s a lot of patience for sure. Be sensitive to the warm up period and be considerate to your partner’s needs.
Closing thoughts:
- Renting at a comfortable range can help improve relationships.
- Do your checklists and calculations before going ahead to looking for a place (Prioritise important cost cutting elements like food and travel to open up your budget, your initial calculations look sad and impossible).
- Talk to people who have rented to learn from their experiences.
- Learn to communicate & adjust to each other’s needs (the calibration thing I was talking about). Have clear delegation of chores, rules & reminders to keep a degree of order in the house. LOL, my partner and I are super messy but we make it work.
- House work SUCKS. Be grateful to your mums.
- We’ve better in terms of career because we had space to FOCUS (and cut out the complexities of managing multiple expectations when living with family). Now renting a 3-Room HDB at Marine Parade for $2,000 a month.
