announcements

We’ve been "cupcaked"..!

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The wife and I have received an email last evening from our friendly neighborhood Press Holdings. We have unknowingly infringed on their copyright by posting scanned newspaper articles on our blog.

And given our humble means, we certainly cannot afford the 500+ dollars per article per year of licencing fee that we are required to pay to continue posting these articles on our blog.

As such, we have spent a large part of last night/today removing the scanned articles. We have (as much as possible) provided  references to the related newspaper article that had previously accompanied each of these postings, so that you may go seek the said article from the rightful owner if so desired. But in case you come across one our posting that has “missing” content, you now know why.

Call us “Sua Ku” (mountain tortoise in Hokkien) but the wife and I have just learned that a certain cupcake shop owned by some local celebrity couple had run into similar issue a few months back.  So are we supposed to feel important now..? Hmm….

ANYWAY

To the good folks at our friendly neighborhood Press Holdings: We apologize for our ignorance and endeavor not to post scanned copy of anything that you have copyrighted on our blog in future.

And to Cristal (you know who you are): Apologies but there’ll be more delays in catering to your request given the sudden “fire” that we had to fight.

“Never pick a fight with a man who buys his ink by the barrel” – Mark Twain


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500,000 unique pageviews later…

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The Good News:    The wife and I are absolutely thrilled that we have crossed the “half-million unique pageviews” mark.

The No-So-Good News:    Due to increasing demands from our day jobs and family committments, we are no longer able to update our blog on a daily basis. We also need to shelve any further plans for SG PropConsult.

The wife and I really appreciate the support and encouragements received from you (our readers) since we started SG PropTalk about 2 years ago.  We will continue to post on our blog as often as we can, and maybe include a property review (or two) when we can find time to visit showflats.

Meantime, happy property hunting!

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Getting it off our chests (again)…

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There have been some interesting exchanges of views between ourselves and our readers lately. This is especially heartening as it shows (in some small ways) that people actually pay attention to what we say and are “bothered” enough to offer their views/responses.

However, the wife and I felt compelled to reiterate the following:

• We are no experts on Singapore private residential properties and have always maintained as such. Any opinions/views that we have expressed and advice given (when sought) in our blog are strictly of a personal nature.

• We cannot be correct or accurate 100% of the time – this much we acknowledged and if we are wrong, we will gladly admit to it.

• It is not our intention to influence/direct our readers’ decisions with regard to property-related matters (not that we can, anyway). Our main aim is to provide you with the necessary information and our thoughts to (hopefully) help you make better-informed decisions.

• We are not anti-investment, as some people may be led to believe. However, we do have some strong views pertaining to private home investments (based on our own experiences over the past 8 or so years), which we like to share on our blog.

• We have no axe to grind with any particular developer and we always try (operative word here) to be objective when comes to comments made about developers or projects.

• We believe that while providing information and opinions on our blog, we are also learning from our readers on stuff that we may not know/be aware of.

• While we sometimes (okay, make that often) defend our views vigorously (because we really believe in them), this does not imply that we do not value/respect alternate viewpoints from our readers. As we have said from the onset, we are really encouraged by the ongoing “debates” that we have generated in our blog.

• We are very concerned about property investors (particularly first-time or new buyers) who, during periods of property euphoria, may over-leverage or over-commit on properties that they cannot afford to hold for the long term (say, 5 – 10 years) . This is because we have experienced first-hand how a toxic combination of  property slump/rising home loan-rate can take its toll on personal finances and well-being.

So call us “old school” if you must, but the mind is only yours and yours alone to make. And if all else fails, the wife and I are pretty sure that you can find other websites/blogs out there that will say exactly what you wish to hear…

Have a great day ahead!

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Gong Xi, Gong Xi, Gong Xi Ni..!

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The wife and I will be taking a short break to celebrate the festivities and partake in other leisurely persuits… OD-ing on Bak Gua and pineapple tarts, making some money (hopefully) from our friends at mahjong and blackjack etc…

We will resume posting next Wednesday (Jan 25th). Meantime, we wish all our readers an excellent Year of the Dragon ahead!

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SG PropConsult is open for business!

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The SG PropConsult page is now “live” and you will find a list of services (which we hope to expand in due course) that SG PropConsult can provide.

We must emphasize (again) that SG PropConsult is very much an information provider. Any opinions/recommendations made in our reviews are not meant to be professional advice and should not be construed as such. But we will always strive to conduct our research with the same diligence and objectivity that is synonymous with our blog.

On our fees: we believed this is pegged at a level which makes sense for us to take on a project and yet not overly prohibitive to our (potential) clients. This is especially considering that buying a private home these days is easily a million-dollar commitment.

Finally, the wife and I are very excited about SG PropConsult and we look forward to be of service to you soon. So come talk to us!

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A new year ahead… and a new page for SG PropTalk!

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As we bid farewell to 2011 and welcome a brand 2012 in an hour or so, the wife and I would like to wish you a terrific year ahead. The private home market is shaping to be equally exciting next year (albeit for slightly different reasons), and we look forward to continue sharing our thoughts with you via SG Proptalk.

And with the new year comes new aspirations: During the past month, the wife and I have been toying with the idea of setting up a property consultation arm (of sorts) to complement SG Proptalk. This stamped from several enquiries we had received from readers on whether we do provide such service.

The consultation arm is currently still work in progress, but we have at least decided on its name – SG PropConsult.

We will be adding an additional page on our blog dedicated to SG PropConsult, which will provide information about the services that we can provide.

Our main aim with SG PropConsult is to provide potential home buyers with objective information/opinions/recommendations on both new and existing developments in Singapore to enable them to make better-informed decisions. So whether it relates to a report on specific development in question, or a recommendation report on developments within a specific area/district that best meet your purchasing criteria (pre-determined), we will be open to discussion to undertake the project (for a nominal fee, which will help reimburse us for our time, effort and petrol cost). We may also be able to connect you with property marketers that we have gotten to know (and trust) during the course of writing our blog, who may specialize in marketing developments in the location that you are interested in.

What we deemed unique about SG PropConsult is that you (the home buyers/investors) are our “clients”, as opposed to a typical property-marketing arrangement whereby the agent’s obligations are mainly towards the property seller.

Given the limited resources that the wife and I are operating with, we cannot realistically expect to take on every project that may come our way. Having said that, we are not even sure if there is actual demand for services from two “non-professional” property watchers. But we reckon that if we don’t try, we will never know!

More details will be available on our SG PropConsult page soon. Meantime, please give us your thoughts about SG PropConsult.

Happy New Year everyone!

With best wishes,
The Folks @PropTalk

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Has it really been two years…?

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The wife and I had originally intended to post this on Wednesday, since Dec 7th was the second anniversary of SG PropTalk. However, the Government’s sudden decision to implement the Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty took centrestage over our little tribute during the past two days.

The past year has been a rather busy one for us on the property front: We sold our (tiny) apartment in District 10 at the end of 2010, decided to go on rental for a year, bought a 30+ year-old apartment in District 20 during 1Q 2011, embarked on a 3-month renovation stint whereby we practically gutted the entire interior of the apartment and rebuilt, and have moved into our “new” home about 2 months ago. But enough about us…

With the support from our readers, SG PropTalk has achieved over 360,000 page views and now averages more than 400 unique visits daily. Although the numbers are peanuts compared to the other more established (commercial) property web/blog sites , the wife and I are pretty proud of our “achievements”: Just remember that we are merely a two-person outfit and running our blog during our spare time.

For the past year, we have tried to update our blog on a daily basis (sometimes with multiple postings a day). We have also included more news and editorial articles about the Singapore private property scene, and even some from further ashore. We have also strived to maintain objectiveness and impartiality when it comes to our comments and reviews. And we certainly hope that the information we have shared on our blog have been useful to our readers.. in some small ways at least.

The wife and I can also proudly proclaimed that SG PropTalk has a small reader following now. We are continually encouraged by the discussions that are generated through our postings and in our forum page. We are also receiving more emails asking us for property recommendations or our opinions on specific projects. We still maintain that we are no experts in the property field but we have tried to answer all queries to the best of our abilities (and as promptly as we can managed).

There are certainly areas that the wife and I can do better: The number of new project reviews have dropped compared to last year. This is despite the over-whelming number of new launches in 2011. But due to the hectic demands of our day-jobs and the added parental duties after our son started primary school this year, we are struggling somewhat to find time to visit showflats. And the last thing we want to do is “go through the motion”. We will continue to provide reviews/our thoughts on new projects as often as we can manage them and we seek your continual understanding and patience on our limitations.

Last but not least… the wife and I thank you for supporting SG PropTalk during the past year. Please continue to support our blog and if you feel up to it, do click on our “Nuffnang” ads from time to time. And come same time next year, we hope SG PropTalk will still be around for us to make our little tribute speech again…

P/S: We welcome any suggestions/comments/constructive criticisms that our readers may have about SG PropTalk. So please keep these coming!

Yours Sincerely,
The Folks @SG PropTalk

http://sgproptalk.blogspot.com/2010/12/we-are-one.html
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