The Great Apartment Hunt

A few weeks after we arrived in Singapore we began looking for our new apartment.  Our company assigned a realtor and a budget and sent us off to find a place to live.  Many people gave us advice and warnings about what to do but none of it helped keep the experience pleasant.

We started our search pretty wide as we wanted to explore the different areas of this tiny island.  We only had a few 'must have' items and it was surprisingly difficult to get all those things in one place.

We wanted:

• 1500+ sq ft
• Master bedroom that would fit a king bed
• Allowed pets and had a convenient place to let the dog out
• Close to public transportation for Derek to get to work
• 3 bedrooms

We went out multiple weekends and weeknights to see over 25 different apartments.  Arranging a viewing was complicated as you have to have your realtor and the apartment realtor at every appointment.  Almost no two apartments are represented by the same realtor so it was meeting after meeting after meeting which always made for a long day.

Finding the perfect place proved harder than we imagined and we grew increasingly frustrated as the days went by.  We felt we would never find the right mix of size, age, and location.  Everyone told us that you would have to sacrifice one of those factors because there was no place that would give you everything.  Some people like to sit back and let their realtor handle finding which places to look but not Derek and I.  We selected almost every single one of those 25 apartments and in the end found one that would suit our needs.  I think we were also just at the point where we had given up and it was the closest to what we wanted.  

It was huge relief to have settled on a place so we could get back to enjoying our weekends and doing fun activities.  Negotiating terms between our company and the landlord took several weeks but they got everything worked out just in time for us to move in.  Now we just have to worry about our stuff fitting into the apartment.