Living in Singapore
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Rental costs of houses (hdb flats, condo, etc) shot up significantly ! Costs of basic necessity like
food, water bill, electricity bill, taxi fare, public transport mrt, bus fare, etc.
Hyper inflation will lead to … famine
next year … 9% GST
Even supermarkets in SG charge $, for plastic bag to contain grocery to bring home -
pirate\" post_id=\"2112417\" time=\"1688473128\" user_id=\"66252:
Agree. Any landlord shld progressively maintain, repair & renovate properties to ensure it’s habitable for continuous rental income. To hv left it barren till a tenant is found is not a wise way, as described by potential tenant of 31 Ridout Road peering at broken wooden floors right to ground level. It’s really no fun having to repair & reno up to typical Sporean std to live in these B&W, no aircon, snakes & possible termites… then all these expenses to write off end of tenancy & return to SLA.
Leaving aside making the rental property habitable, it is stupid for a landlord not to do up the property, especially a GCB sized property.
All that is needed is to modernize the wet areas, ie kitchen and bathrooms (by simply tiling everything over without even hacking), and install the aircon. If necessary, put in a new layer of internal glass windows (because conservation houses can have horrible shuttered windows). The other areas only need a floor polish and a fresh coat of paint. After that, SLA can easily rent it out for 15k-25k more a month. The capital cost can be recovered in 1-2 years.
Who wants a yucky kitchen and icky bathrooms?
It's just inertia on the part of lazy SLA.
Costs of repairs can be chalked against tax deductions whilst maintenance & reno costs can be amortized. But if left unkempt & turned off potential for years wld be foolish & mismanagement by SLA. I may be wrong but that’s how I see it.
Rental of large size B&W is a not a big rental income, just relative. During Covid, it might be difficult to find appropriate tenants and finding enuf workers for maintenance work but minimal work shld still be carried out. The managers of B&W need to step up fr now. -
What SLA is doing, is akin to putting the cart in front of the horse. Every landlord knows the importance of grooming his rental property before showing to prospective tenants to get a higher rental. Any rational person will low ball the rental after seeing a run down property. Extremely illogical to rent the BWs at low rates then spend huge sums to do up the place for the tenant. Warped logic!!
Maybe we cannot fault the SLA officers because they fully complied to the established SOP.
It seems like the whole SOP should be reviewed and revamped!!
Better still, just pick a few BWs with historical value and demolish the rest to free up the land for more productive use in land-scarce Singapore. -
lee_yl\" post_id=\"2112473\" time=\"1688539302\" user_id=\"17023:
Yah. Cannot fault the SLA officers because they have to comply with SOP. Must fault the one in charge of overseeing the SOP. The buck for this stops at the top. That should be the Minister of the Ministry SLA is under. That would be... oh snap!
Maybe we cannot fault the SLA officers because they fully complied to the established SOP. It seems like the whole SOP should be reviewed and revamped!!
:siam:
To make it worse, President Ong Teng Cheong had alluded to the problem of poor management of government real estate ages ago... :slapshead:
Maybe management of rental of government real estate should be shunted from Ministry of Law to MND? -
lee_yl\" post_id=\"2112473\" time=\"1688539302\" user_id=\"17023:
Yah. Or if Gov really wants to keep the BWs, keep them but chop up the extensive land into smaller parcels.
Better still, just pick a few BWs with historical value and demolish the rest to free up the land for more productive use in land-scarce Singapore. -
pirate\" post_id=\"2112570\" time=\"1688612962\" user_id=\"66252:
Precisely. The land around all the conservation shophouses in town are well developed. Why can't the b/w bungalows be conserved and the surrounding land developed? Especially if the enjoyment of the b/w is for a select few who are able to rent at a much lower rate than nearby GCBs and that the b/w rentals are based on GFA and the surrounding land confers no benefit to the rent.
Yah. Or if Gov really wants to keep the BWs, keep them but chop up the extensive land into smaller parcels. -
Sell them to a commercial entity like JTC who can do a better job of leasing them out:
https://www.nparks.gov.sg/-/media/cuge/ebook/citygreen/cg12/cg12_basf_learning_campus.pdf
https://mothership.sg/2020/12/rochester-park-starbucks/
https://ieatishootipost.sg/garys/
https://thehoneycombers.com/singapore/rochester-park-guide-restaurants/ -
zac's mum\" post_id=\"2112573\" time=\"1688614684\" user_id=\"53606:[quote=\"zac's mum\" post_id=2112573 time=1688614684 user_id=53606]
The one used as Starbucks at Rochester is nicely done! Under CapitalLand’s management.
Sell them to a commercial entity like JTC who can do a better job of leasing them out:
https://www.nparks.gov.sg/-/media/cuge/ebook/citygreen/cg12/cg12_basf_learning_campus.pdf
https://mothership.sg/2020/12/rochester-park-starbucks/
https://ieatishootipost.sg/garys/
https://thehoneycombers.com/singapore/rochester-park-guide-restaurants/[/quote]
But if I were a tenant, I would prefer SLA as my landlord rather than CapitalLand because rental under SLA would definitely be cheaper, no price increase for a decade!
-
pirate\" post_id=\"2112561\" time=\"1688610230\" user_id=\"66252:
Good idea but maybe MND also doesn’t want leh? Who would want to take on extra responsibility. Lol
Yah. Cannot fault the SLA officers because they have to comply with SOP. Must fault the one in charge of overseeing the SOP. The buck for this stops at the top. That should be the Minister of the Ministry SLA is under. That would be... oh snap!
:siam:
To make it worse, President Ong Teng Cheong had alluded to the problem of poor management of government real estate ages ago... :slapshead:
Maybe management of rental of government real estate should be shunted from Ministry of Law to MND?
If we were the landlord, how could we tahan 4yrs we can’t rent out? But for SLA, by leaving the units vacant, it does not hurt their own pockets. And by getting the BWs rented out it actually means more work for the SLA staff like having to attend to complaints from tenants regarding snakes/mosquitoes or ask chop trees, and calling for tenders to carry out structural repairs.
To be fair to ministers, Perm Sec are the ones overseeing day to day operations of the ministries. MinLaw perm Sec should be more familiar with what is going on within SLA than the minister himself.
Weird, why in. 2018, he bypassed the perm sec (MP Ms Tin’s hubby) and CEO SLA to go direct to DS Law to request for some info. Anyway, let’s not go too deeply into this since there is nothing wrong from the reviews. -
Explanation given for the money spent on refurbishing the 2 bungalows:
https://youtu.be/ZSD89jPMQLg
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