Eric_Bal

Hi, I'm considering a job that moves me to Singapore.

Probably some where around the Clementi / West Coast / Pasir PaNJANG residential area , if I decide to.

Any suggestions/recommendations on condos / houses / places to rent for loding for me and my family ? Easiest would be to go for condo's but there may some expats on this posting who can think of other more personal / "interesting" ..unique yet comfortable and secure places to live. I'm thinking $Sing 3,000 as a maximum monthly rental ....

floydude

Eric this is not a forum to discuss relocations. But I can suggest two websites (http://singaporeexpats.com/) and (http://expatsingapore.com/) which have some great forums and active discussions on moving. Check 'em out.

I also think $3000 is reasonable if you are moving with a family(of 2-4) and the usual expat haunt close to Clementi/West coast is Holland Village/Buona Vista. If you are working downtown, another option would be the east coast, much more scenic and many more 'things to do in the park/sea' if you are the active kinds.

Good luck! While I love my New York, I enjoyed every bit of my two years in Singapore.

Cicerone

I lived in Singapore for almost 5 years and the last 2.5 years I lived in Pasir Panjang and just loved it, more out of the city and great sea views. There is also a good vegetable and wet market there (Pasir Panjang Whole Food Centre) on West Coast Highway. Commute time is about 15 minutes by taxi or a bit longer by bus, and it is actually very easy to get to Holland Village by bus or taxi (used to grocery shop there). If your kids are going to be in school, I am not sure what the commute/bus schedule would be.

IMO however a maximum rent of S$3,000 a month may be quite tight for a family from what I understand of current Singapore rents, you might want to speak to your employer about this. That is about US$2,000 a month. That would be tight in a lot of places in the US, let alone a place like Singapore where housing is quite expensive unless you can get into HDB housing. Does your budget also include government rates which may not be included in quoted rents?

Try citiprop.com for some listings (they show Costa Rhu on the East Coast at US$3,000 for a 3 bedroom, one of the websites above claims they go for US$1,800 so interesting to see what is really going on there....). Also get a copy of The Straits Times, which is the main English-language newspaper in Singapore. A newsstand may carry it, or your local library may be able to obtain copies for you. They have a website at http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/, but they do not have classified ads.

Lindsey

I am an expat currently living in Singapore and have been here for 6 years.
Rents in Singapore have shot up on average of 30-50% in the past 12 months. It's a MAJOR problem for many expats because the packages offered by their companies are NOT keeping pace with the escalation in housing prices. In addition, there is crisis at the moment because all of the international schools are at the bursting point, with huge long wait lists. So depending on the age of your children and the type of schooling you want for them, that could be an even bigger problem than housing.

You are the only one who can answer your own question about $3000 being adequate for rent, because you are the only one who knows the standards and type of place that will suit your family. I can tell you that choices in that price range will be extremely limited. The papers are full of bait and switch ads from agents who claim they can get you good deals. If you call them, they won't quote a rental rate past next week because that's how fast the prices are going up.

If I were in your shoes, I would ask a potential employer to send you here to look at the housing market and school situation yourself, before you make any further commitment.

kerikeri

i'm just curious as i have long dreamed of a life in singaore but it didn;t seem doable in my field...in what fields do you expats work, banking? and do you speak malay or mandarin?

thanks,
kerikeri

floydude

you will have every question about employment answered here...
http://www.contactsingapore.org.sg/
its Singapore's official expat-promo website.

And while there are secondary languages Mandarin, Malay and Tamil, the language of business is English, and pretty much everybody speaks/understands some degree of English.

Cicerone

I agree that you don’t need a language other than English to live in Singapore; however Singapore as a business marketplace is quite small, and most firms (at least those which can hire expats) need to have an Asian-Pacific customer base in order to survive, and that is where knowing a language can make you extremely marketable. I don’t speak any Asian language well enough to do business in it, so I would be somewhat unmarketable if I were looking for a job today; but I am senior enough now that I don’t worry so much about it as I have experience and skills that junior people don’t have and have a loyal employer (so far). I’m an attorney, and have been practicing for about 20 years, about 15 of which have been spent overseas. I know that if I were say 10 years junior in age and experience, no one would really be interested in hiring me at this point in Asia. I got a job in Singapore in 1989 with a law firm with very little experience, no overseas experinence and no langauge skills. I am pretty sure I would not get that job today if I were that same age and with that same (lack) of skills. It's a very very different market. My company has pretty much without exception ONLY hired people with language skills for about the last 5-7 years. There are just so many people out there with them to begin with, that it is easy to get the mix of language and education/training that we need. The number of people from the PRC and India coming back from US and UK colleges and grad schools with language skills BAs or advanced degrees is kind of astounding. We also think that we can train junior people to do a job, but it’s not so easy or attractive to have to train them in a language skill.

I do think there are jobs here and I would encourage you to look, but I also very much think that unless you are fairly senior in terms of the experience and skill set you can bring to a job, not having a language skill will make you somewhat less attractive and marketable. You could a course try for a “local hire” with a company which does only Singapore-based work, but IMO the problems there are (i) they would even more so need or want you to speak a language in order to be able to deal with local employees, (ii) you might have trouble getting sponsored for a work permit if it is strictly a local job, and (iii) a local pay package may not be a living wage for you.

You can always of course do things like teach English in Singapore or Korea or the PRC, that is a good way to be overseas for a few years and I think a lot of people enjoy the experience. If you are a teacher, I also believe it is not too difficult to get teaching jobs at the “American” school or other international schools. You don’t need language skills for those jobs.

kerikeri

thank you both for your replies.

i did not elaborate that i have read those singapore web sites for years, and have also regularly checked the job vacancies at the american school, the german school, etc. which have been nil.

while on one of my trips, i met some nice ex pat women while at holland village waiting for a shop to open who both said it would be "easy" to work at the american school. alas, it is harder than one might think.

i had suspected that being an attorney was the preferred skill set. i have a sister in banking who also said there were openings "all the time" in her field. neither are my skill set.

thank you again for taking the time to answer and for such detailed responses. i appreciate it.

kerikeri

KMLoke

There's openings in banking. Does not apply across the board to all areas. Majority of them are on local terms as cost is a major item in the agenda for everybody. The demand for experienced bankers are in part due to:

- A huge demand for investment bankers with the explosion in private banking in Asia.
- Operations particularly treasury ops. Due to the set up of regional/global processing centres by several major global banks.

Example:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/...ess/sxstan.php

Having said that there are bankers who have lost their jobs due to relocation of functions to India and China.

Eric_Bal

Thanks guys for your responses....

Good perspective from expats or former expats there. I will check out the housing carefully as per everybody's advice. I have heard about how real estate prices and rentals have shot up the past year...and now I'm realizing it's really a phenomenal rise I should be careful of...

To the question, I'm in the marketing/branding field, and don't speak Malay or Mandarin. I'm a Filipino who's been doing marketing/ branding across South East Asia for the past 10+ years.

Cicerone

Kerikeri, as per my post above, I DO think that teaching is one of the professions in which you might be able to find work in Singapore or elsewhere. From looking at the website, for the Singapore American School, it appears that there is a least one position for a resource teacher (?) at the primary school level, take a look at http://www.sas.edu.sg/career/teachpositions.html. There are several websites run by or for people teaching English and other subjects in foreign schools around the world. Take a look at Overseas Digest (overseasdigest.com) which has a section on teaching overseas. www.overseasdigest.com/odsamples/ambrose.html The site has lots of information, links and contacts about teaching and living overseas.

You could also consider volunteer work in various SE Asia countries. Places to start would be:

United Nations Volunteer Program at http://www.unv.org/
Oxfam International at http://www.oxfam.org/
Habitat for Humanity http://www.habitat.org/

kerikeri

thank you again. i have been a volunteer for several years,in africa and asia. i just can no longer afford to do so.

that is why i am seeking someplace "nice" like singapore to "settle in" and earn some salary.

but i do appreciate it and there are new additions to the jobs list on the contact singapore site, so i am pursuing those as well.

thank you for your generous time.

kerikeri

kerikeri

to clarify: i have been a volunteer "over the course of" several years...not "for" several years. just to clarify!