- Vanessa Tai met her husband during a six-month backpacking trip through Europe.
- After over two years in a long-distance relationship, they settled in Singapore to start a family.
This story is part of a series called "Millennial World," which seeks to examine the state of the generation around the globe. This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Vanessa Tai, a 36-year-old freelance writer and stay-at-home mother of one in Singapore.
I got married in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. I'm Singaporean, and my husband's from Croatia. I was backpacking through Europe for six months in 2017, and we met during the last two weeks of my trip.
We hit it off and ended up in a long-distance relationship for 2 ½ years. He moved to Singapore in June 2020, and we tied the knot two months later.
For about a year, he lived with me and my family in our five-room Housing Development Board flat in Holland Village. Holland Village is in the central region of Singapore. It's known for its bohemian vibe and variety of food offerings.
Housing Development Board flats are public housing, and they're home to about 80% of the country's resident population. They're considered leasehold properties, and each new unit — also known as a "build-to-order" apartment — is sold on a 99-year lease.
But we couldn't apply for a build-to-order apartment, so we looked for resale properties on the open market.
We started searching for a house together before he even moved to Singapore
I originally wanted to live near my parents. We didn't want to pay more than 500,000 Singapore dollars, or about $370,000, and looked for a home with at least three bedrooms — a four-room flat.
It was very expensive in the neighborhoods surrounding Holland Village. They were all in the SG$600,000 to SG$700,000 range, so we decided to expand our search.
I hadn't considered the Sengkang area — about 14 miles northeast of where I grew up — but when we went to look at the houses there, we were pleasantly surprised. There was a lot of greenery, which was important to us, as well as several childcare centers. We knew we wanted to start a family, so that was another plus.
We viewed a four-room flat in the Compassvale Beacon development one afternoon and made an offer immediately. The flat checked all the boxes: It's a 1,001-square-foot corner unit with spacious rooms in an area public transportation serves well. More importantly, it was within our budget.
The asking price of the flat was SG$450,000. The seller's agent told us the Housing Development Board valuation was SG$430,000, and we ended up making an offer of SG$445,000, which was accepted.
It's been over a year since we moved in, and we're now a family of 3
We got the keys in April 2021 but moved in September because of renovations. We worked with an interior designer as well as a flooring contractor to refresh the space and make it ours. It cost us about SG$40,000 to renovate the entire home.
The house was eight years old when we bought it, and we were the second owners. Locationwise, we're near a subway station and can get downtown in about half an hour.
I gathered my down payment using my Central Provident Fund Board account and cash. The board is a social-security-savings scheme for Singaporeans and permanent residents. It's funded by monthly contributions from employers and employees. While it's primarily a retirement fund, it can be used to buy a property, service a housing loan, or pay for certain medical expenses.
After the down payment, most people either take a Housing Development Board loan or a bank loan to finance their homes.
The Housing Development Board interest rate is fairly stable and has stayed at 2.6% a year for a few years now, though the Housing Development Board acknowledges that it may be adjusted over the year.
But we chose to take a housing loan from a Singaporean bank instead. Our loan was for SG$317,400 with a tenure of 25 years, but we were offered a package that allowed us to lock in a fixed interest rate of 1.4% a year for five years. We're now paying SG$1,254.54 for our monthly mortgage.
I didn't want to spend so much of my salary on the roof over my head; I wanted to live my life, too. I want to travel and do things other than just service my mortgage, which is why I didn't want to overpay for my house.