Housing Woes

The seller of my flat is having housing woes. he confirmed to sell his flat in april, but till now, he has not found another to move into. he cited a high mortgage for his reason to sell his centrally-located modest looking 4 room flat but now, to find a replacement might cost almost as much. with the recent spate of record-high HDB flat prices, many sellers are asking for 40,000 in cash and up. And we're not even talking premium areas like Bukit Merah and Tiong Bahru.

As such, his family is in no hurry to move out, and would find all reasons to stall the process of the resale. We understand his dilemma, but we are in one too! We have been patiently waiting for the flat since April and will not get it till December at least. He offered to rent from us for a month or two at, get this, about $1000+ for 2 months. WTF, our mortgage per month is already $1000+! We know he's strapped for cash but charity cases aren't our forte. We don't exactly earn big buckaroos or have 6 digit CPF savings. Maybe he thinks we do, whatever. Then he got his agent to draft a letter to ask us to undertake rectifying of unauthorised works in the flat...to save his own money of course. And then, he offered to do it for us, but that might stall time. Did you know HDB doesn't care when he has to do the rectification works? They will just halt the sale of the flat until the works are done. Not a benefit to us of course...

*sigh* We do hope to be able to do renovation this year and move in asap. We dread doing housework, cleaning and paying so much for a house...but it's time to grow up yes?

will we move in before new year's 08?

we really do hope we get to move in before the end of the year. our initial plan was to celebrate his birthday there, throw a housewarming of some kind, and maybe have christmas or new year's parties. unfortunately, a calculation of the time duration HDB usually takes for the completion of the sale reveals we might have to wait till mid-oct to start any renovation and by the time it's over, it will be Jan 2008. we pray God will provide us with a quicker schedule. After all, we have been patient for quite a while already. To think, the delay the seller caused us wasn't as long as what HDB can do...a whopping 4 months?! Just to do paperwork?