******

Hallo J*****,

I can't think of anything really useful to you other than some general stuff. Hope it will still be of any use to you.

One

It is good to get hold of one of these forms. [link]. It is easily available in any vehicle licensing centre near you. Sometimes the seller does not hold one of these, that makes the buy/sell process more tedious and annoying. When I want to buy a car, I want minimal delay. Save time, save travelling expenses. The GREEN portion should be filled up by the SELLER, the RED portion should be filled up by the BUYER. Both should submit their respective forms to any vehicle licensing centre within 7 days.

Two

I cannot spell out the obvious here. You have to figure out what I am trying to say. There is something call Dutiable Value when you buy a used car. The buyer will be paying this duty. The tax will be based on the SELL PRICE of the car. Follow this [link] and look for the simple calculator to play around with. It isn't much but it can save you dollars enough for a carton of beer, or two. Or three.

Three

Tips on used car purchase negotiation process [link]. Warning: Very Amateur Level.

Four

A good maintenance record is always encouraging. You will never be 100% sure what the previous owners did. In fact, even proper licensed car dealers can be as dodgy as anything. Having records, receipts of parts replacement or regular servicing - better than nothing lah. Timing belt - if it is changed not too long ago, means you will dodge an expensive servicing for a while. Look out for 

Worn belts - touch them and listen for squeak/screech sounds when you test drive. If bad, give the seller a face and tell him your Taekwondo Black Belt runs those cranks better.

Leaky hoses - must be dry at joints. As dry as university lectures.

Any oil leaks - it should be clean and dry at the engine and transmission area, especially near gaskets. Unlike a bachelor's room.

Worn tyres, the more defined the threads, the newer and better. Tyres are not cheap to replace. Tyres shouldn't be wobbly and smooth like spare tyres on married men.

Suspension - if there is a grinding/clicking sound when you turn the car, at least one CV joint is screwed. Go pass humps and make sure it doesn't feel or sound unusual somewhere. Go fast past them and if the seller is in the car with you, look out for his expression. Song ah.

Waterproofing - normally if the car isn't well taken care of, it is obvious enough at first glance. But no harm checking out gaskets around the door areas. I know rain is romantic but sometimes you don't like it coming into car.

Brakes - Sharp irritating sound during braking, pads are worn. Wobbly braking, the discs are worn. No braking, good luck bro.

Five

Test drive. Don't be casual about this. After all you will be the one driving it next time, if you buy it. Pay attention to every detail on car handling. I am surprised some folks didn't even bother to test the reverse gear. Test every damn thing, including the seat belts clips. Look for spare tyres, tyre changing kit etc and ask him if there are any freebies that comes with it, such as unfinished engine oil, coolant or his curvy blond girlfriend in wet t-shirt waiting impatiently nearby.

Good luck bro, and tell me how it goes.

I was being treated a big sandwich Alfred's Kitchen, which was suppose to exist since 1946. It was nice to see a humble business which existed for more than half a century remains a humble business after all these decades. It is probably not ran by a Singaporean, for there will be franchises all over the place by now. Or at least a much bigger outlet with nice renovations and decorations with a nicer price than before too. I said these first so you cannot throw the name Ya Kun at me.

Sure you can replicate taste. Any recipe can be perfectly replicated in any talented hands. But the magic of food isn't pertaining to taste alone, although most Singaporeans will disagree with me. Good food will go place, they say. That, they explain why they found themselves into strange nooks and crannies that no one knew existed to have a taste of that Level 14 Buffalo Wings at the ground which also housed steel wings, or that silky dou hua in the most inconvenient location, or that prata along the tiny street. As far as I know the magic is gone the moment it is replicated or moved. Our fathers would tell us they first held our mothers' hands at Satay Club. No one asked which satay club during those days. It was THE Satay Club.

Food connects the soul, body and mind at all once, not just merely filling the stomach really. That is strange coming from one of the least fussiest eaters you'll ever come across - me. For I have been eating the same lunch for months and whoever who came across what I have been eating will make a face or put in some clever comments like, "You are a cow, mooo." Perhaps that was the reason why I kept getting invitations to taste good home-cooked food. Because I take everything and anything, including food that I hate such as Lady's Fingers, Brinja, Bittergourd, Pumpkin and other yucky stuff, so long as it was prepared by my host. Consumption is not a one way process. By consuming food painstakingly prepared by the chef, you are returning the respect. A two-way process.

Alfred's Kitchen opens only in the evening. So whoever who chants, "No shops open at night in Perth," should get their butts to Guildford and shut up. They'll be surprised to find a long queue (yes they exist here) there made up of people from all walks of life, regardless of race, language or religion. They have only something in common, a growling stomach and the hunger to soak up the unique atmosphere in the restaurant. They call themselves a restaurant but the place deny all forms of definition of the word. It is a part kiosk, part toto/4D booth, part bus interchange, part campfire hybrid. Call that a restaurant if you want.

Right outside the shops were benches by the roadside surrounding a bricked pit where the operators will burn wood fire during all seasons to indicate they are open for business. I like the symbolism, on top of the practical side of the burning fire providing diners a much needed source of heat during Winter. Not so sure what good the heat will do during Summer though, unless it drives away flies.

Many backpackers found work in Alfred's Kitchen, according to those hand made cards pinned on the notice boards outside. Well, I would have offered those cute Taiwan Mei Meis a job as well if I run a restaurant. But that doesn't mean I would have received Thank You cards declaring their love for the restaurant they worked at, which Alfred's Kitchen did. I bet Alfred's Kitchen paid them A$3,000 a month to wash plates.

******

This little girl is a legitimate Singaporean daughter, being born to a Singaporean father. But she isn't, due to the combination of the fuck-up by her parents and the fuck up government agency, ICA.

Ok. I was in the wrong. I did not do a checklist like a soldier checks off his full pack list. No Singaporean son who went through his rites of passage can excuse himself for negligence. I should have known better. I am not blaming anyone but myself. I am sharing this for what happened, as it is. No other purpose.

At the counter of ICA, Singapore last September, we endured with one of those exceptionally (but fast becoming norm) long queues to see the officer at duty. We were surrounded by foreigners, probably there to apply for a Singapore citizenship or extending their PR or whatsoever. I felt like the minority, it felt way worse than being minority in Australia. I couldn't quite describe why. Perhaps for those of you who think being minority in Australia is a very good reason not to migrate, you should try it someday. You may be surprised.

At the counter our application for little Albany's Singapore citizenship was rejected because we did not bring one document. I knew like everything else in Singapore, there wasn't room for negotiation. Law by law, even where the supposed sacrality of citizenship is involved. I am afraid our friend S is right. The government does not take the Singapore citizenship seriously. They don't give a shit. Don't get me wrong. I was in the wrong and I didn't expect any concession. All I asked for was a little flexibility, if not humility. There I was, finally earned myself enough money, annual leave and recovered from most of my work injuries to make a trip back to Singapore. With me I brought along my baby, whom I wasn't comfortable with the idea of flying earlier at a few months old. And so we were rejected to start an application there and then. By the time we could make the next trip, she would be more than 1 year old. ICA will not take up cases for babies over 1 year old, I was told.

Yeah, I fucked up. Starting an application in Perth is futile for ICA requires both parents and child to be present at their office to meet the interviewing officer to start an application. How about some humility? How about allowing me to start the application, meet the interviewer and I will furnish the agency with certified true copies of the missing document once I am back in Perth? No. No. No. By today, Albany is ineligible for a Singaporean citizenship due to ICA's guideline. We can only make a trip back early next year.

Yeah, fucked up but that doesn't mean I don't take this seriously. Anyone can screw up in their examinations even when they take it seriously, not to mention anything else in life. Do we really have to be so stringent? I mean, we were trying to do something legitimate, not trying to be funny. To give Singapore a rightful Singaporean daughter and to give our daughter her citizenship status she was suppose to have. As a parent, I do not want to make such decisions for her. She will grow up to choose for herself.

No, I didn't expect the Singapore Government to lay carpet for me just because they claim that they want babies, more babies! This is not Finland, where they provide every single baby the box [read why Finnish babies sleep in cardboard boxes [link]) I know all about law-by-law. I signaled to Jen and said, "Let's go." We waded ourselves through the swarm of foreigners, whom many would get to apply for their Singapore citizenship that morning, and left.

It left me with little choice. With that, it killed off any possibility I will return home. At the moment, I am not prepared to stay apart with Albany. Not yet.

To all overseas Singaporeans,

I have a few questions for you. These have been running through my mind for some time now. During gatherings with Singaporeans here in Perth, the topic of renunciation of the Singapore citizenship will pop up once in awhile. When asked why, one of the most common answers given will be, unsurprisingly, "Take out CPF lah!"

Indeed, we can take the Singaporean out of Singapore, but we can never take the Singapore out of a Singaporean. Money continues to be our main motivation behind most of our life-changing decisions. I cannot speak for the others, there may be people who refuse to admit it. If work life balance is the main motivation why Singaporeans roam overseas, we will be thoroughly all over the world and not just herded mainly in USA, UK, Canada and Australia. I believe these are not the only countries which can offer a better work/life balance in the world.

Ok, it's about money. Nothing to be ashamed of. We need the money to survive in this modern age, especially none of us Singaporeans of this generation have been trained to live off a piece of good land even if we are gifted one. We need money to live better than we did in Singapore and hopefully be able to afford the odd-trip. It's tougher to make the same trip using Baht or Ringgit.

Back to the topic, it hurts a little to hear statements like, "Why don't you keep your citizenship since you have almost no CPF anyway?" In case you didn't get it, I wasn't hurt because people realise I am piss-poor but the way many of us regard the idea of citizenship no higher than a few zeros in the banks. Ok, maybe some people have more than a few zeroes but that highlights the point altogether. The importance of the citizenship is inversely proportional to the balance in our CPF account. Perhaps I am overstating the meaning of a citizenship here. Maybe it has been merely a pass to bypass a gantry, just like a cashcard in the IU device going pass an ERP gantry. No other meanings like childhood memories, sentiments or Stand up for Singapore.


I seriously think it is not only money. Before I left for Singapore for my short return last month, I attended a gathering at Sham & Rob's. Eve made an exquisite jelly of a Singapore flag with the crescent and stars embossed. It was like a 3D flag, fucking class. The menu of the night was 100% Singaporean. Unbeatable rendang, satay and a long list that enabled us to get drunk of Singapore. Someone brought along a Singapore flag and I saw our handsome boy taking photos with children holding the flag. I didn't know if it was Sham's or Rob's idea to stream the NDP 'live' on TV but it attracted a small group of us to naturally crowd around the TV and view the familiar sights and sound and comment about Ah Gong's gaping mouth, inciting standard Singaporean banter from those glued to the dining table to call out, "Oi, siam leh. Don't block the TV." Really, 2 years, 4 years, 7 years, 10 years.... No matter how long you are away, no matter how well we learn to speak and behave like locals, the Singaporean in us will never be quit - unlike what some ex-PM said.

Some questions I always wondered about:

1) If Singapore allows dual-citizenship will you keep it? Why?

2) If you have no money in the CPF, will you bo dai bo ji renounce your Singapore citizenship? Why?

3) Does your red passport really mean cashcard or does it has a little Stand up for Singapore for you?

At around the cost of the high A$300k, you will get a good new 3 Bedroom, 2 bathroom, automatic shutter garage fit for 2 cars house on a 300+ sqm piece of land. All yours. That is by no means affordable housing in my standards, unless one is raking it a A$100,000 per annum salary. As we are operating as a single income family, and me being engineer trained, I will never include a dual-income calculation as a safety factor. Don't get me wrong. It isn't wrong to do so. Most of us operating on dual income will stay employed for 25-30 years. Most of us will not be unable to work due to illness. Most of us will be fine and will pay up the last drop of blood to the vampires at the end of 3 decades. Then what next? How would we live off the big house, aged with old fashioned cladding and sickly like their owners by then. Learn to unlearn the years and years of confusion by the Singapore property dymanics. It has been artificially manipulated. Never assume what we experienced is how real estate markets work elsewhere.

An old house will cost next to nothing. No one in the right mind will pay the same price for an old house, not to mention a higher price unless it is of a vintage or heritage status. If this sounds new to you, take a look around and you'll find this applies to everything. Computers, handphones, cars, dusty Hello Kitties, whatever. No one will even pay more than $10 for brand new Nokia 3310 in mint condition today with the only exception, vintage level. When it comes to houses, we have to approach it with the same logic in mind. All old houses have a base value. Just like old cars, there is a base value you cannot go below no matter how old or poor condition it is. But that doesn't mean you have to buy it just because there are no cheaper car in the market. So we should never assume someone will buy our old house at all, unless it is special in some way such as a unique design - shaped like a shoe or a football for example. Or special because you ended up bowing down and lowering your price to the rock bottom base level, not much more than what your land value.

Yes, the land value will be likely to appreciate over time. If you bought the land with cash, you will be likely make a profit if you are patient enough. If you purchase it with a huge bank loan on high interest, your profits will be greatly eroded. If you also get a big loan to build that house on the land, with the house depreciating rapidly over the years, a guaranteed loss, you'll end up having no or very little profit in total. Let's hope the Australian Tax Office does not tax your 'capital gain' by lessing the sale price over buy price. I'll cry if they do, because most of these 'capital gains' came from my own pocket by paying interest to the bank. (Remember the last lesson?) So how do we monetize our old house? Sell up and buy a smaller house, which will be very, very expensive by then. It better be very expensive, because if it isn't, we will be holding negative equity. In both cases, we are fucked. So we like the idea of downgrading to en-cash for retirement, why didn't we start with that small house in the first place? Imagine the interests you save, imagine the depreciation arrow that you dodged. You'll be a grinning muscat, jamming with other old punks everyday like those chaps in the Coles Advertisement.

We viewed an old house in Gosnells last year. It was a very old house, 50 years of age, sitting on a good plot of land, almost 800sqm in size. The owner was asking for A$320,000. It was a classic case of the house being close to its base value. The asking price could probably be beaten down by a few good percent, bringing the final price not very far from its land value. Try to look around for a 800sqm land these days and see if how much it will cost. I didn't buy it because I was piss-poor, along with other considerations which I don't want to tell you. In fact if I do, you'll probably think I'm bullshitting, like the previous 2-3 post this week.

I realised I went off-topic. I actually wanted to compare a 3x2 house in Perth to a 4 room flat in Singapore and justify why a 3x2 is decent, even at a higher price than the HDB 4 room BTOs. Maybe next time. /rant

******

******

Hi Anne in Oz,

If you noticed, I did not mention a word about renting in the post. In general, renting is bad, bad, bad. With the constant drumming of this from real estate agencies, hardly any one will think renting is good. In Western Australia, renting may not be necessarily bad and I can provide figures to prove it. I can't promise when I have the mood and the right lazy weekend afternoon to get myself doing it though.

The point of the previous post was to minimize the damage high interest rates can and will do to us if we over-leverage. Personally, I think it is dangerous to have a mentality of offsetting our rental rates with interest rates. That is simply another sales pitch constantly indoctrinated into our minds by real estate folks. I mean, they have good intentions to find us a house with a mortgage payment similar to our rental payments but we tend to fall into the trap that you mentioned, over-purchasing to our needs and ended up paying more interests than rental. People also tend to forget as a home owner, all maintenance cost, repair cost, property tax, strata fees (if any), council rates and who knows what other levies in future will be weighed entirely on our shoulders. In a high labour cost environment, repair costs burns. That is the reason why if people think they are paying $350 a week for rent and should get a house paying $350 a week for mortgage repayments will be in for a nasty surprise.

Yes, I do encourage getting out of rental but in the correct way with the correct mindset. I highly recommend reading this work of genius [link]. Every Singaporean should read and think hard about it. This is the kind of mentality that will help the new migrant to Australia of today's environment. Gone were the days where the median price of nice green titled Aussie homes were around the A$200,000 range. Today, we have to react correctly to the new market forces. The impact of getting ourselves a A$450,000 loan is a big difference to getting a A$150,000 loan that earlier migrants would have taken up. That impact may actually hurt us more than staying in a rental setting a bit longer if we do the sums correctly.

I will iterate the importance of assessing the proper situation instead of relying on the old advice of getting the 'standard' 4 x 2 because it is 'easier to sell'. Perhaps there isn't a question for large families. They need space. Even couples need space, we all love space. But we have to bear in mind space costs us money. The extra space that we do not need cost us rental. We pay interest rates to the bank for the space the empty bedrooms that we hardly use, except for storing dusty Hello Kitties, which may very well be better off in the storage shed or bin.

Look at it from a business point of view. Will anyone of us rent a shop front to run a Boost Juice stall where only a kiosk space is all we needed? So why will a couple or small family need a 4 x 2 on a 500 sqm land if they do not have special plans to unitize the space, for eg semi-sustain themselves on intensive fruits/veg/herbs production in their yard? It's really up to individuals. This article is not for those who have the money to burn.

For the piss-poor folks like me, we have to understand and ACCEPT this golden triangle rule as depicted below

If you want a large and new house, you've gotta move to a further location like what my friends Joe and Sam did buying their first home at Byford. If you die die wants a good location but unwilling to go small, you have to accept a old house and do repairs yourselves over time. The house will eventually be uplifted if you have the patience. If you hate old houses but still love location convenience, then you have to accept a new but small place. You can always call it 'cosy' to make yourself feel better, just like my guests will call my current rental place. If you expect a big place, good location and sparkling new good condition home but do not have deep pockets, you are in for a miserable time by sinking yourselves into deep loans. Please lah, ai pi ai qi ai dua liap ni. No such thing in Singapore, so don't expect it to be any different in Australia.

I'm happy someone finally hits the calculator and realise what kind of trouble we'll land ourselves in if we go straight right for the 'standard' 4 x 2. There is no such thing as standard. When someone told me I had to spend 3 months of my salary on a proposal ring so that my wife will be happy ever after, I showed my middle finger. In life, if we do not learn we show our middle fingers at the right time, we'll end up with dusty Hello Kitties and very little money, that is all.

Properties in Australia have gone up two-folds in the past ten years. I've iterated like a broken record that another two-fold from the current price is going to take a long, long, time. Yet everyone I met seem to tell me the price of properties can only 'go north' (whatever that shit means) and it is therefore, safe to buy properties in Australia.

Well, I can't say the people are entirely wrong. If you can dump a truckload of cash into it, why not? You'll get a decent capital appreciation for it by the time you sell up sometime in future. But if you borrow, and borrow lots of money to finance that 'standard house', good luck. That's not how the game should be played in an environment like Australia where banks charge very high interest rates. My wise newly migrated friend in Melbourne is a smart woman and wasted no time to tap the calculator real hard to force it to reveal the money traps all round. [tool]

The 'standard' 4 x 2 house in Perth these days cost about half a million bucks to build. Say if we are prudent enough to hold a cash stash of A$100,000, we will still be required to borrow a whooping A$400,000 to build that house. If we were to borrow A$400,000 for 25 years with the interest rate of 7%, the total interest payable will be $448,136. The interest that we pay is double of what we borrow. It means this house will cost someone of this borrowing profile A$848,136 in total. Even if we shave the interest rates by 2%, the house will still cost about A$700,000 in total. I think all of us understand this simple calculation how interest works against us. So what if we don't even have A$100,000 to begin with?

If we sell this house for A$900,000 25 years later, many of us will assumed we made a profit of A$500,000. That's a cool half a million profit. Wrong, because A$848,136 actually came from our own pockets. So our real profit is really A$42,000 which is 4% of our total cash investment. That works out to be 0.16% per year on average across the 25 years span. Quite pathetic but that, we delude ourselves by calling it capital appreciation. Now, what if we cannot sell that house for A$900,000 25 years later? Really bao jiak meh?

It's a different story if the buyer has a truckload of cash of A$400,000 and only needs to borrow A$100,000 to build that 'standard' house. He will be paying a total interest of A$112,034 with everything else equivalent. Some of you may point out you don't need 25 years to pay a loan of A$100,000 that's let's keep things the same for comparison purposes. The total outlay for this house will be A$612,034, a far cry from A$848,000. If this chap heng heng sells his house for A$900,000, there will be a real capital gain of A$288,000. Having said that, that gain works out to be only 1.88% per year on average. Real estate, a good investment? Bullshit. Not always the case.

In a high interest environment, the rules of the game totally change. We come from Singapore and we are used to the old rules. It was almost a sure-win, buying a house with maximum loan and low interest rates and selling the house for a high capital gain in a once-in-a-lifetime unique situation when the country is undergoing its economic golden age. The same strategy will never work in future, not even in Singapore, when our population reaches the projected number. In a high interest environment like Australia which has also seen the passing of the real estate golden age, it's suicidal to take on high loans to live the 'standard' way.

There is only a few options to consider.

1) Buy a 'non standard' house, or even rural, if you have to have space.

2) Get the loan at a very much lower interest rate to the local rates and never forget rule 1)

3) Rent out every single bloody room or shed or kennel you can to pay up the loan in as fast as you will wash poison off your hands. That defeats the purpose of comfortably living by yourselves, with all the landlord/tenant issues so you may be better off sticking to rule 1)

If you are cash rich, there isn't a problem anywhere you go. You can do anything you want, the rules always favour you. If you are piss-poor like me, don't get into the trap. There is always a day in future when the full moon will rise, shining brightly than all the stars in the sky combined.

Think hard and be patient.

******

Hi Zi,

I am not sure if I interpreted your questions concerns correctly. So I hope what I can offer is relevant to you.

First, if you are applying for a work visa, then it is understood that you will have to take up a job relevant to what you qualified for because your work visa is tied to your expertise. (at least, initially). Since you mentioned the points system, I take it as you are looking at the Permanent Resident visa. If you are able to chalk up 85 points, you are qualified and will probably get your application approved without much issues. The PR visa entitles you unlimited entrance and length of stay and you are permitted to work in Australia. However, it does not restrict you from working in the same industry as you initially qualified yourself during your PR applications. So you are free to drive a bus or be a park ranger or whatever jobs you are able to land yourself.

I don't think very well of your Plan B, if we are thinking along the line of qualifying for the Australian PR. Any plan that reduces your chances is a SHITTY plan. If you are thinking about career prospects or pursuing your interest instead, don't let anything stop you. 

I find it contradicting that you are planning to come to Australia despite knowing that its star is fading. Do enlighten me what is in your mind regarding this.

asingaporeanson