Find your way in the jungles of Singapore shopping malls

Singapore has malls, a lot of malls. At least 188 malls! I know this because I have downloaded SG Malls Singapore By Hereing. This was when I have had hard time to find the stores where my wife could spend her Marina Bay Sands points in Marina Bay Sands mall sugarcoating the casino. I actually first thought to develop an application to show me my way in the large malls of Singapore but then I told to my self "mille, the wheel may already be invented". It was indeed, 2359 media team has probably been lost long before me. They have developed this cool application SG Malls Singapore and already added 188 malls to it with stores including their telephone numbers, website and fax numbers plus interior maps of the malls. And unlike I have planned, they are offering it free of charge on iPhone and iPad.

 So next time you get lost in a Singapore mall and wander around to find thatFood court, Levis store or MacDonalds, you can use SG Malls iPhone application to navigate in increasingly large and horribly layout-ed malls. The application senses location of Nearby Malls, provides a store directory that is searchable by name or category of the store and a map of the mall so you can easily find your way to a store. So no more missing the promotion in a favorite outlet, looking for an information panel to locate a restaurant or let your nature torture you while looking for a toilet. Singapore has mall, a lot of malls and you do not have to worry about getting lost in one.

Where am I? You are here!

The application is developed by 2359media. This is the first mobile application developed by this Singaporean  firm incorporated in 2009 by Wong Hong Ting and Zhou Wenhan.

Free and instant IC Photo for Singapore NRIC and Passports

If you need an IC Photo for Singapore NRIC, Passports or work visa like Employment Pass you may think that you need to spend $7 at a photo booth. Or if you are keen to save you can spend hours with your digital camera and photo editing tools to create some.

Since this December you also have a free and easy to use alternative, a free  iPhone app developed by Tinkertanker.  By using this app, you can take a perfectly cropped picture that you can submit online to Immigration & Checkpoint Authority (ICA).  The application is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch (4th generation), iPad 2 Wi-Fi and iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G. Requires iOS 4.3 or later.

All you need to do is to line yourself up with the guides to make sure you’re framed correctly. Take your own picture (for devices with front-facing cameras), or have someone else take it for you. Your photo will be automatically cropped and resized for ICA's specifications for NRIC/passport photos (400 x 514px). With the guides, you won’t get a letter from ICA that telling you to "show more shoulder" in your photo.[1]

Here is your photo cropped to ICA requirements :)

 [1] - IC Photo for Singapore NRIC and PassportsBy Tinkertanker

What is inflation?

You know Singapore's inflation surprised experts by being up 5.7% in November 2011. Although housing, transportation and petrol prices contributed significantly, a worrying trend was also the food prices, they were up %3.6.

But what is inflation? What are the causes of inflation? Inflation is actually is a symptom rather than the sickness itself. When the amount of money in an economy increases faster than the amount of goods and services, the overall consumer prices rise. This rise is called inflation. 5.7% rise in November 2011 means, a basket of goods which costed S$100 back in November 2010 now costs S$105.7. This is what the rate of inflation is.

For individual goods, the amount of that good plays a significant role. For example due to the floods in Thailand, the amount of rice supplied to Singapore will probably decrease. But since the money chasing it will not decrease fast enough, the price of rice will probably rise. But foe entire goods and services, the inflation, especially in developed economies, is caused by the faster increase in the amount of the money. I say faster because technology and innovation in developed countries increases the amount of goods and services available. So if the amount of money was fixed, the overall prices would decrease. But since they are increasing, you can conclude that amount of money is increasing.

The below chart shows M2 money supply in Singapore for the last 20 years. M2 is money and close substitutes of money (all time-related deposits, savings deposits, and non-institutional money-market funds) since 1996. M2 is a broader classification of money than M1. Economists use M2 when looking to quantify the amount of money in circulation and trying to explain different economic monetary conditions. M2 is a key economic indicator used to forecast inflation. (Source : Money Supply)

You can see that the M2 increased almost 10% from 2010 to 2011 (actually more since December 2011 numbers are not in yet)! So almost %6 inflation tells us that overall amount of goods and services have not increased as fast from 2010 to 2011.

Singapore M2 Money Supply 1991 - 2011

Still, it is early to say that inflation will be horrifically high like this in the future. Below graph for example shows the inflation rate between 1999 - 2010. The average was %1.5 with a single very high year of 6.5%.

Source : indexmundi.com

Orchard Parksuites, serviced residences on Orchard Road

Serviced apartments in Singapore are usually used for corporate housing: the fresh expats stay in these apartments before they move to their flats. But serviced residences are also good alternatives for those who would like to experience home-like stay in Singapore while on holiday or business trip. And for some, travelling with children, it may be the only convenient alternative to hotels.


These facilities also have housekeeping services and you basically stay in fully furnished apartments serviced regularly. Especially if you are coming with your family or you are tired of hotel rooms however luxury they are, serviced residences can be a good choice.

Centrally located on the Orchard Road, Orchard Parksuites is a prestigious serviced residence in Singapore operated by Far East Hospitality, hotels and residences arm of Far East Organization. Orchard Parksuites is a few minutes away from the Orchard MRT Station and if shopping is the agenda of your visit to Singapore and you have the budget, it offers a very pleasant stay. It is located opposite ION Orchard Shopping Mall and numerous shopping centres like Lucky Plaza, Wheelock Place and Ngee Ann City Shopping Centre, Lido Cineplex (located within Shaw House Shopping Centre) are near by.

This serviced residence is also good for business travellers since it is quite a short taxi ride away from Singapore's Central Business District and Orchard Road MRT Station is only a few stations away from Raffles Place MRT Station.

Orchard Parksuites

Serviced apartments in this residence are in the high end luxury category offering stay ranging from 1-Bedroom (loft) for 2 people stay, 2- Bedroom and 3-Bedroom apartments to penthouses. It offers a swimming pool and wading pool, a sun terrace with sun loungers and parasols, a gym, hot tub and tennis courts, as well as a sauna and steam room. It also offers a complimentary breakfast served from Monday to Friday only (except public holidays). There are also BBQ pits available for private parties by the pool (on request). Monthly rates are from 10,000 SGD to 26,000 SGD depending on the residence type. Families with budget, professionals on short assignments prefer the place.

Click here for a list of serviced apartments : List of Serviced Apartments in Singapore.

Here are some other upscale luxurious serviced apartments in Singapore

Orchard Scotts Residences in Singapore

Fraser Residence Orchard

Somerset Compass Serviced Residence

Far East Plaza Apartments by Far East Hospitality

Singapore Management University

Have you known that there was a prison at the grounds of Singapore Management University campus on Bras Basah Road? Singapore and the straits settlements served as the nineteenth-century penal destination for more than twenty thousand prisoners from the South Asian colonies of the British Empire. On 18 April 1825, first batch of penal convicts arrived in Singapore and they were housed in temporary huts along Bras Basah Canal. From 1841 to 1936, four prisons were built by the British to house the convicts, and the Bras Basah was the first prison to be built.

The Bras Basah Prison was a large site used to occupy the open area known as Bras Basah Park (which eventually became the current site of the Singapore Management University). The prison was well known to the local population as "Lau Khaku Keng Kau" (mouth of the old jail) or "Ken Kau" (ankle chains). It was an extensive prison facility back then and occupied three blocks. According to the archival records, there was a prison break on February 13th 1875 involving sixty Chinese prisoners.

Singapore Management University Logo

Today, the prison grounds are occupied by the Singapore Management University (SMU). SMU was set up as Singapore's third university in 2000 to provide a different model of university education and the university moved to its current location at Bras Basah in July 2005. SMU has 7,000 students and has six Schools offering undergraduate, graduate, and PhD programmes in Business Management (Lee Kong Chian School of Business), Accountancy (School of Accountancy), Economics (School of Economics), Information Systems Management (School of Information Systems), Law (School of Law) and the Social Sciences (School of Social Sciences). Singapore Management University is the first to introduce American-style pedagogy to Singapore's tertiary education. SMU is also the first to occupy a city campus, joining major cities like London, Paris and New York which all have established downtown campuses. Located in the hearth of the city within the historic and cultural district of Singapore, 4.5-hectare urban campus has six buildings.[1]

Singapore Management University was ranked 65th worldwide by The University of Texas at Dallas Top 100 Worldwide Business School Ranking.
[1] National Heritage Board

Cheap short term rentals rooms and apartments in Singapore

If you want to stay in Singapore for short term but long enough, hotel rooms currently priced on average 200++ SGD per night, will be a very costly choice. You can alternatively go for a cheap serviced apartment in Singapore for which you will pay less if you are not looking for a high end luxury. But you have more options: short term rentals sites. The oldest one of these, as far as I know is, Airbnb. Airbnb is basically a global network of accommodations offered by locals. It's a cheaper short term accommodation alternative, especially in big cities like New York, San Francisco, Paris, etc. The site is easy to use, you just enter your destination, check-in and check-out dates and number of guests, then look for a suitable accommodation option. Most of the options are room rental in different types of private housings ranging in price from 50 SGD to 150 SGD. There are still cozy options here, I have seen a Luxury Studio in Singapore for 200++ SGD and a Sentosa 1 Bedroom Suite for 448 SGD per night.

Airbnb may be the first but there are also other new comers. One of them I have recently discovered is Roomorama, a website, co-founded by Singaporean Teo Jia En and Italian native Federico Folcia, in January 2009 — just five months after Airbnb. It offers short term rentals and nightly and weekly apartments, homes and rooms:

"Roomorama is the discerning traveler’s one-stop shop for short-term rentals. Wherever your next trip will be, or wherever your property is, use our online marketplace to connect and transact with hosts and guests who believe in convenient, rewarding and unique travel experiences. With an ever-growing inventory of hospitable accommodations, Roomorama is working to make you feel at home wherever you are."
Source : Roomorama

Roomorama

Roomorama have 2 offices, one is in New York and the other one is in Singapore. The web site provides cheaper short term stay alternatives for travellers while it also provides a convenient medium for people who wants to rent out their own apartment and find existing online classifieds hard to use and inconvenient. Most of the listed options are short term room stays priced nightly.

Other than these 2 options, if you are OK with this type of accommodation, you can also check Wimdu and 9flats.

But be warned, renting out these rooms is technically illegal. According to a spokesman for the Urban Redevelopment Authority, the government body responsible for private housing,  private residential properties may only be rented out or sublet for six months or more, as 'transient occupiers' could inconvenience other residents.

[1] - Illegal short-term rentals on the rise

How to rent a flat in Singapore without paying property agent fee?

The answer to the question above may look obvious since you can rent a flat in Singapore without a property agent so you can avoid paying a commission to them. But there is a better way. You can rent a unit, a licensed property agent can still be involved and you may do this without paying any agent fee. Here is how.

In Singapore there are two types of property agent involved in the rental transaction: landlord's agent and tenants agent. An agent cannot represent both parties at the same time and cannot get fee from both parties at the same time. And landlord agents also give advertisements to internet and classified ads. All you need to do is directly contacting the landlord agents. By doing these you still do the transaction through a licensed property agent and reduce the risk of scam and will not pay any agent fee. But these people do not advertise themselves as landlord agent so you need to differentiate them out. 1 option is to simply ask. If you have enough time and go through enough people, you can find some landlord agents. You can differentiate many without asking since these guys will ask you whether you are an agent or interested in the property for yourself.

Landlord agent will of course be there to force landlords interest but believe me, most of the tenant agents are also not interested in your benefit anyway so you absence of them does not change much. Still you need to be more careful when no agent is representing you and be sure that you check everything while going into rental. But since there is a licensed agent involved (check agents license before going into any tenancy agreement), the risk is lower.

You can also directly find landlords from online/newspaper classified ads but do this if you really know what you are doing. Rental scams are rare but they still exist in Singapore and you need to be very careful if you are directly dealing with a landlord.

Land for 5000 more Executive Condominiums will be released in 2012

Minister of State for National Development and Manpower Tan Chuan-Jin has announced that there will be land release for 5000 new executive condominiums (see What is an Executive Condominium (EC)?), a private housing and public housing hybrid popular among higher income Singaporeans. This number is nearly 30% of all ECs launched since their introduction in 1995 (14,600 units and 3000 are on their way). These units are restricted to Singaporeans in their new launch but they can be sold to foreigners when they pass the 10 years old age. They are also subject to income ceiling which was increased from 10,000 SGD per month to 12,000 SGD per month in August 2011. At a time when prices between so-called mass market condominium units and HDB flats are historically wide, they are becoming more popular among Singaporeans who are not eligible to buy BTO flats but also not earning enough to buy private flats.

In 2011 excluding December, 2,855 units of executive condominiums are sold by developers. This was more than 2,535, the number of units released the same period. Executive condominiums are popular because their per square foot prices are 20 per cent less than so-called mass market private flats which fetch average of 1,000 SGD psf. But it is not only priced out private property seekers showing interest. Since resale HDB prices are also up, many prefer to top up for EC with more facilities instead of buying a plain HDB unit.[1]

One thing should be noted that executive condominiums are popular as long as the gap between private housing and public housing prices is wide. If the economic slowdown severes and the gap closes, ECs may not be as popular as they are now.

[1] Demand For ECs likely to hold in 2012

25000 more BTO flats will be released in 2012

We have entered 2011 with long application queues for Built-To-Order flats and frustrated new weds repeatedly failing to get a flat since all were oversubscribed, sometime 5-7 times. In 2011, with the new Minister for National Development Khaw Boon Wan, BTO practice is shelved for a while and HDB have started to released record number of flats without waiting for a demand to accumulate. 2011 saw 25,000+ releases, nearly more than the last 4 years combined and according to the HDB, 2012 will also see high number of HDB releases:

"Another 4,200 new flats in 7 BTO projects has been launched by HDB today, following its bumper 8,200 flats just two months ago. The latest launch offers new flats in Bedok, Bukit Panjang, Hougang, Punggol and Yishun. This brings the total number of BTO flats offered in 2011 to 25,200 units. HDB will continue to offer another 25,000 BTO units in 2012."
Source :  Another 4,200 New Flats Launched; 25,000 More to Come Next Year

2012 launches will start in January with 3,890 flats offered in Choa Chu Kang, Punggol, Sengkang and Tampines. HDB also signalled that it will look into building more flats in mature towns. Previously HDB was offering new flats only in new towns.

This number is significantly more than 15,000 new weds per year. Newly wed couples are the majority of the first time applicants who had priority up to now. But these numbers show that next year, focus will be shifted to second timers. Actually, Khaw Boon Wan has already wrote about the shift in his recent blog entry:

"There will of course be new first-timer applicants, but their numbers will be below the 25,000 BTO flat supply for next year.  First marriages involving Singaporeans number about 15,000 a year. Currently, we reserve 95 percent of BTO flats for first-timers, leaving only 5 percent for second-timers. Once we have cleared the first-timer queue, we can help the second-timers more. Registration for the current BTO launch will close in a few hours. "
Source : BTO wish coming true?

This development is also very important for secondary HDB market. For who are not familiar, HDB or BTO flats are public housing flats developed by Housing Development Board. Singaporeans can buy brand new flats either directly from HDB or buy used HDBs from owners (resale market). This market is also open to Singapore PRs but both markets are closed to foreigners. 23% of the resale flat buyers are first timers, many frustrated with long queues of new BTO flats or priced out from new flat market (there is a household income limit for new BTO flats). %34 are second timers and %15 are singles. 20% percent of demand came from  Singapore PRs and 8% came from private property owners (Source : Who buys the resale flats?). Since more than 50 per cent of the demand for resale flats come from first timers and second timers, these new BTO flats will remove significant amount of demand from resale market, which is still recording price gains although the transaction numbers are going down.

To save more think about yearly costs of habits

When it comes to saving money, there are many items we spend or waste money without even knowing the true cost especially when their daily or monthly cost is small enough to ignore. For this reason, it is always wiser to look at the yearly cost of items. This may sometime surprise how expensive some small habits even if they do not look that expensive to you at the first glance.

Take an executive who is enjoying a take-away drink from Starbucks every workday morning. Assume that he pays $5 for the drink. By just replacing this single habit with preparing his own coffee in company's coffee machine, he can save $1,000 in a year. If free coffee is not available, he can well switch to kopi tiam, which will save him $900 to him.

Or think about one of the most harmful and wasteful inventions of human kind: cigarette. If you are smoking a package of international brand in a day, you will pay $12 per day for this harmful habit. It may look affordable for you but it adds up to $4380 a year. Even if you are smoking a package for 2 days, it is still a very high $2190. It is very common for a smoker to spend a month or two month salary to finance this single habit alone!

Many simple and easily replaceable habits eat up some bite from your budget and they may add up to thousands if you do not fight with them.