The Journey to walking into a showflat and buying your first condo.

The 6 Step Thought Process Journey to buying a property

So you’ve been dreaming of wanting to get the property of your dreams, a condominium or landed property of your dreams, but you’ve been hesitating because it’s such a stressful consideration. Let us guess what goes through your mind.

• “How much money do I really need to save?”
• “Can I use CPF and how to use it?”
• “To apply for mortgage loans, how much am I truly entitled?”

• “What type of house to choose? How big? How many rooms?”
• “Any friends who just bought? Should I ask them?”
• “I know that some colleagues just bought a property, but I don’t want to pry into my private life that I’m intending to buying a private property.”
• “What is the risk I will face?”
• “Any agents willing to help? However, are they just out to earn my money or really will be transparent enough to tell me what’s good or bad about this unit I’m interested in?”

“Ever wonder what is the buying process?”

We understand your stress. Hence, we in PropertyWiki hope to share with you what kind of journey you would expect.

Step 1: The exploration

While browsing Facebook or Instagram, or while walking around Raffles you are given a flyer (Or even in your doorstep), or you notice a roadshow whereby a property specialist is conducting a roadshow to advertise this new property that is launching.

After reading it and finding the information online, or through speaking to the agent you got interested in viewing the show flat. What you would expect is they would issue you a VVIP guestlist and arrange a meeting with a dedicated agent (or the one you see in the roadshow) for more information.

So why is seeing an agent specialist so useful? It is because on the spot they will perform some basic calculation for you, based on the information you provide. (Be expected that they will ask you for your salary income per month and how many properties you currently have, as well as if you’ve taken any form of loans, these are a norm so don’t be surprised, it is solely to give you an initial reading to gauge how much you can technically afford to purchase for the property) From here, your specialist shall make the most appropriate recommendation to suit your preference.

Step 2: The invitation

The day comes when you will be going to view your potential home in the showflat location, where the agent will meet and greet you as the VVIP guest. Once you’ve stepped into the air-conditioned show flat, you’ll be widely greeted by your dedicated agent whom you met with.

(*Special note: If you directly walk-in without an appointment, you’d be entertained by an agent specialist who had been queuing up to wait for walk-ins like yourself, so you’d be expected to go through stage 1 on that day itself as well.)

So what you’ll see are a model of the project, the location, surroundings, amenities around and other key benefits that the specialist should be explaining to you about.

Next, you’ll be looking at the mock-up design on how the unit potentially can be visually. These built to scale display models are what will be promised by the developers to you. (*Special Note: IF the bare unit received deviates more than 3%, the developers are entitled to reimburse you. Refer to Defects liability period here)

Things you’d be seeing as follows:

• 1:20 scale model
• Information board
• Actual built to scale units (Showflat’s highlights)
• Boundaries of wall, windows and doors location

Step 3: Understanding what you are buying

After looking at the beautifully and expensively designed showflat unit, you’d probably have a lot of questions – “How to buy? I love it. But do I really have enough at this stage?” Or questions like, “Is this unit really okay? What do I not know?”

Fear not – Your agent will cover all of these questions. He would introduce you to meet the following:

• A Tagger (A subject matter expert agent specialist, selected by the developer, who is situated in the showflat to answer all technical queries about the development project),
• A banker (To answer your mortgage queries, like how much loan entitlement you can have preliminarily),
• A legal representative (To address all your legal queries and doubts)

Step 4: Decisions, Decisions

From here, it’s your choice now that you have all the information you need. (Hopefully you’ve taken notes to remember all the information provided at hand). So it is time to decide, if you wish to look through more projects or to consider buying this one that you view. Always remember that this is your choice and not get pressurised to make impulse purchases.

Step 5: Your final decision

So if you decided to view more units, just inform your agent and he can arrange for you to visit other showflats to look at other projects that he felt would suit you. If you decide to purchase this; your agent will arrange to declare your interest via “Expression of interest (EOI)” form. This would include the 5% cheque of the purchase price of your unit. Your agent will inform you the balloting day and will invite you down again to see if you got the ballot (Lucky draw style).

Final Step: Balloting and documents

So the balloting day comes, a piece of advice – Dress comfortably, be expected to see a massive crowd of people, agents and potential hopeful buyers waiting to buy the unit. If this project is a hot and well received project, be expected that you may not get the chance to buy it.

You’ll go to the showflat and notice that there is a huge tentage beside the showflat, that’s where they’ll be conducting the ballot. Usually, it commences at 9.30am on a weekend and could drag till 4pm or later (So keep your day free). Your agent, (he/she will partner with their teammates as well), will inform you on your ballot number and will be busy keeping a lookout for you on your numbers, hoping you’d get called so that they can arrange for the necessary.

And you got selected! – Congratulations! Now your number got called up, so you and your agent will be walking into the showflat, to fill the documents and receive the following:

• Option to purchase
• Purchasers’ particular form
• Annexures and side letters
• Letter of Authorisation