On December 5, the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) announced the reduction of property tax for HDB flats in 2015. Three days later, there was an article "Property Tax cut for one in four private home owners" in The Straits Times. A week after their announcement, a representative from IRAS further elaborated how annual values are calculated in The Straits Times … [Read more...]
Buying property as a gift
A Singaporean man is suing his ex-lover for the return of gifts given to her during their courtship, including $340,000 for a condominium unit bought under the woman’s name. The ex-lover defended that he offered the property to her as a gift. He only asked for its return when their relationship turned soured. On the other hand, the man complained of being cheated. He claimed … [Read more...]
Renovation do’s and don’ts
Here is an abstract of the interview by Lisa Ang from Property $ense. … [Read more...]
Learning to be a smarter landlord
I had my first tenant since 2002. For more than five years, I was renting out four condominium units at the same time. Over the years, like any multiple-property landlord, I signed tenancy agreements with dozens of tenants on both company and individual leases. I had tenants who were Japanese, Koreans, Europeans, Americans, Indians and Singaporeans. Similarly, I encountered … [Read more...]
7 tactics to maximize the return of your investment property
(This article is extracted from my book No B.S. Guide to Property Investment, a bestseller at Kinokuniya and Times bookstores.) As an investor, you have two major objectives when you are holding your property: 1. To generate an optimal return from your investment; and 2. To increase its value to be sold at a good profit in the future. To achieve that, you have to maximize … [Read more...]