Housed

Today I sent my wife into the great outdoors, armed with a digital camera and an internet connection, and waited. Five hours later, we had a rental agreement signed and a flat in Chinatown, looking out across Singapore. This was a marked improvement to the last time I went house hunting in Singapore (four days of panic, rage, and no house at all), and suggests that the lightness of a woman’s touch was all that was needed to solve my intractable housing problem.

More househunting in Singapore

Today I spent the morning in better spirits, looking at condominiums. Condominia? Whatever...

Househunting in Singapore

It's a funny old thing. People putting their house on the market in Britain and the US are so often advised to do things to make their property more saleable that it becomes a cliche. Brew some coffee, put some bread in the oven, tidy up and eliminate all signs of individuality from their home, so the buyer feels capable of stamping their own mark upon it. So much so that perhaps first time buyers and renters believe that every home they could move into smells only of coffee, freshly baked bread and Glade air fresheners.

Tomfoolery with estate agents in Hong Kong and beyond

I was shocked to read that in Sydney, prospective renters and homeowners get to see flats only for fifteen minutes. All at once. Not a fifteen minute time limit on one person's visitation, but everyone who wants to view a flat has to see it during the same one ninety-sixth of the day. It's ridiculous. It's almost as if the arrangement was designed purely for the convenience of the estate agent, without any thought for the customer.

Contract

I'm moving home soon, so I ended up reading the contract for my current tenancy. Some people might think that's the thing to do before you sign it, but this is the kind of devil-may-care lifestyle that I have.

The kind of devil-may-care lifestyle where you spend your spare time reading legal contracts that are about to expire.