Archive for January, 2007

After I decided to put up my apartment for sale, I saw several real estate agents just to get the feel of things. They all told me that my apartment is only worth so much so much, blah blah blah and that they had several buyers who wanted to look at the place.

Eventually I decided to sell it on my own without going through an agent (cos’ I was stingy and didn’t want to pay 2% agent fees!) I also felt that an agent could not give me enough value added service since I understood the process well enough and since I had no intention of passing the keys to any one of them, I would still have to go through the trouble of showing potential buyers personallly.

And so having made that decision, I went to Ace Hardware and bought a “For Sale” sign. I also made another homemade sign myself and stuck them on the window and front balcony door of the apartment.

Guess what? I received my first call, while I was driving away from the apartment and by the end of the first week I had received about 18 calls and made several viewing appointments with a few prospective buyers.

I received an offer plus a counter offer from two different parties within that week and cancelled the viewing appointment with the rest.

I’ll talk about the two offers in my next blog post.

 

I bought my first apartment on 22nd August 1995 as a single girl at age ………(*calculate calculate* Writing blog posts is fun. It helps me remember things). Hmm… lets see…….. at the ripe old age of 29. (If you do your math, now you know why I need help remembering things!)

I bought the apartment for my dad and I to stay before we overstayed our welcome at my brother’s house. I don’t think my sister in law would be very happy to have her father in law and sister in law staying with her permaneantly. I don’t blame her and I think its natural for her to feel that way. When you get married and move into your new home, its more fun to start off with just you and your spouse instead of having the in-laws stay with you.

At first we had been staying at a rented house which my elder brother took over after dad retired. After a while big bro asked for rental because he said I was a working adult. I was about 22 at the time. After he got married and moved to his own new home, he kindly invited dad and I to join him. We did for a few years (I paid him rental but not dad of course) until I bought my first apartment.

So thats the brief history of why I bought my first apartment. I decided to buy instead of rent because I thought it made more sense that way. I had worked a few years by then and had enough savings to pay the deposit. I thought that servicing the housing loan for my own home would be much smarter than paying someone else to service theirs by renting.

Other than that I didn’t have any financial sense or financial plan at all. In fact after a few years, due to rising interest rates, I owed the bank more than what I borrowed. LOL! Still buying rather than renting turned out ok for me eventually. I didn’t make a profit from selling but even at break even its still better than paying rental which goes poof in the air.

Next I’ll talk about my experience in selling my own apartment without using any agent.

Yesterday, I closed the door to my first apartment for the very last time with a tinge of sadness. As I walked throught the empty rooms, flashes of memories flit through my mind.

I looked at the greying carpet and remembered its early shiny sheen. I remembered the first night I slept in my airconditioned, carpeted room (the first time I had aircond in my own room) feeling really proud of myself for owning the place, my first real home. (All my life I had lived in rented houses or rooms. I didn’t have the security of a house to call home until then although rented houses did a good job of being “home” most of the time.) Its just a cheap, 20 (now 30) year old walk up apartment but I felt pride nevertheless.

I saw my wedding dress hanging at the window, the night before my wedding and the sisters and nieces who came to be with me that night. This was the place where we “chut moon” (bride’s house) from to go to the groom’s house for the tea ceremony which is why my heart is heavy not to be able to see the place again, the place where I held my wedding tea ceremony. (Most people would hold the tea ceremony at their parent’s house because it is a symbol to show that you are now leaving your parent’s home to go to the grooms family home to be wed to the groom. I didn’t have any family house so my own apartment was used as the bride’s house for the ceremony. Nevermind I suppose, I have photos as a reminder)

I saw through my minds eye, the good times I spent there with my dad and boyfriend (hubby now). Yes, I felt sad to say goodbye.

The whole weekend was very busy for us organising and making the move (this is only the beggining!) made worse by the fact that baby had runny nose and a fever. Poor baby did not get the bed rest he needed and had to follow us around. I carried him all day while we dealt with lorry drivers, contractors etc.

My poor little baby. Got to go and manja him now and continue this post some other time.

My first adsense cheque has finally arrived. It took me 6 months. Fairly long, but its still money, yes? Hehe. This time, I hope to get more “baki” than the previous ReviewMe cheque. LOL! Hubby is still mocking me about that incident and he glanced at this cheque suspiciously and said “You’re sure its worth all this trouble? Can’t you request to have a cheque only when you reach a bigger minimum amount of say $500?” (Wah! Like that I wait until my neck grow long lah!)

Wait lah dear, wait! I’m working hard on my PPP postings. It’ll be great if I get more orders from ReviewMe and Performancing too. Wish me luck guys and gals.

In the meantime, I would recommend the Adsense program to anyone who has a regularly updated blog. Its as easy as pasting a few codes onto your blog, the way you would post your traffic or stats and other codes. Very simple. After that you just sit back and wait for the money to come it. Doesn’t matter if it takes you a month, 6 months or a year. Its still money and it requires little or no effort from you.

If you have a blog that is updated regularly the search engines will find you, relevant ads will be put up according to the words you used in your post (like magic) and you will inevitably get some clicks on those ads. Simple? Why not give it a try? Just click on the little blue adsense button on my header and register. That’ll also help me to laugh harder at my Mr MG. Heheh. Thanks!

Psst. To me, not trying out Adsense when you have a blog is like saying no to free money. If someone comes to you and tells you “I want to give you USD100.” would you say No?