Category: Home & Living

While we can hope they are friendly, we need to be prepared for the possibility to live next to noisy neighbours.

For years now, residents in the Jalan Besar neighbourhood, specifically around the Petain Road, Somme Road and Cavan Road areas, have stepped up to ensure their neighbourhoods remain clean, civil and welcoming. Recently, their efforts garnered far more attention (and admirers) than they had anticipated. For example, one of them, Ms. Wendy Chan, who lives…

On April 29, 2022, the Municipal Services Office (MSO) and Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY) met to form a Community Advisory Panel (CAP) on a very interesting problem. The agenda? To develop a set of community norms that will address the issue of “neighbourhood noise”. Neighbourhood noise in this case means noise from…

Many of us can’t imagine life without our furry friends. But if you’re living in an HDB flat, and not private property, you might just be illegally housing your pet without realising it. How many dogs can you keep in HDB flats? Are cats allowed? In this article, we tell you all you need to…

Last month, we did a story on a renovation contractor who has allegedly failed to complete renovation work on time (and for one case that we know, failed to start). The contractor is supposedly named Vincent Liu Junnong, but also goes by many other names. This includes Calvin, Kelvin, Kevin, Mike, Alex and Benjamin Lau,…

Singaporean singer, songwriter, record producer and actor Lim Junjie (JJ Lin) has purchased three pieces of virtual real estate or land in Decentraland, a marketplace in the cryptocurrency sphere where virtual property is bought, sold, and users can log in and hang out in a “metaverse”. The 40-year-old international superstar, who is primarily based in…

A few months ago, someone asked if it’s possible to get a new housing loan or refinance his existing home loan if he’s: a) Retired, or b) Living off passive income (ie. unemployed) By passive income, he means adopting the FIRE lifestyle. FIRE stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early, which is a movement by individuals to…

On paper, renting an apartment seems straightforward enough. You view a property within your budget that you like, you sign the tenancy agreement, and you move in.  Simple, right? Well, not quite. There are many horror stories from tenants who were forcibly evicted by nightmare landlords, and it seems a new case surfaces every couple…

This article is part of 99.co Money Diaries. Are you saving as much as a late-30s couple earning S$12,000/mth? How much are people really spending on their mortgages or parents’ allowances? Money Diaries provides a micro, non-filtered view into local households and their expenditures. For this season, respondents included a couple in their 30s working…

Tenants, if there is anything that you need to know before you rent, it’s this: rental rates are always negotiable. Not only is nothing set in stone, negotiation margins—the difference between asking price and the price the landlord is willing to accept—can be rather large, so it’s worth your while to negotiate before making your…