Aug 2nd week update

Mon - Wed Balestier/ Geylang to look at lights.
thur evening Designer to confirm design and choose paint
fri evening - confirm defects and went to Audio house (unfortunately closed after we finish our dinner and looking at other shops)
Sat morning- HZ class
afternoon/ evening - Designer (choose lights $1.6k /wallpaper and curtain $4.4k ) spent
Sun morning - visit Dad
afternoon - KIV lights yesterday , visit Lightcraft and then lighting.com.sg to confirm room lights.
evening - went to dad's office.

Update

Tuesday -
Morning (Electricity Inspection)

Wedensday
Morning (Send Maid to Post office to send money)
Evening (went to see lights at Balestier)
Night (Write Business Proposal)

Thursday
(Check for Annual report)

Sat (Send Mum/Bro & Myself for Medical checkup)

Next confirm lawyer letter
Source for buyers

Bathroom + Kitchen accesssories



Tuesday (Choose Lights/ Curtains/ Wallpaper / review design again (balcony/ Master Bdroom (TV console/ Children's bed)

May- Aug Weekend burnt

Every weekend is burnt, from May, all weekends burnt at my Dad's office (inventory check/sorting accounts) , that I dun even have time to cut my hair.

The previous previous weekend was mainly
-checking for defects at my property
- meeting up with designer (confirm design & material)
- busy chasing the property agent for property agreement

The previous weekend Sat was
- morning (Hsien Zheng's class)
- afternoon meeting up with the designer to confirm materials, designs etc.
- Sunday morning was breakfast
- visiting my Dad
- going to Parkmall to shop for sofa, finally got a satisfied German sofa from Castilla.

The last weekend Sat was
- morning (Hsien Zheng's class)
- afternoon went to Ubi to look at sofa and dinning set
- Later in the evening, went over my Dad's property for defects inspection
- and after dinner went to Furniture mall to get my dining set. (really super productive).
- Sunday morning breakfast
- visiting dad
- afternoon went to my dad's office to sort out accounts again and record payment.

Rental of Property

Rental of property
My Dad actually wanted to rent out his new property, so I had to see what is the best way to rent out. I actually thought of renting out myself, but after seeking advice from my Uncle, it is best to leave it to an agent. Why ?
- my dad's property is a 4 bdroom, and usually those are expats from MNCs and these MNCs will employ property agents to do it
- at the end, after co-broking it is still the agents who will get the commission
- the agent will sort the SP Power (electric/water and Gas) transfer to the
Anyway I also posted in SingaporeExpats and was going to post in PropertyGuru and SPH (ST171??) and newspaper.
My Uncle advise is to try to get as much conditions favourable to myself (owner) as possible. For. eg. if there is any defects to be repaired, the bar should be at an individual case.

May- July Had to take over my Dad's business

May Investment

Divested most of my shares (was caught by part of the fall) and shifted to gold & silver. After making some profits, my mind was affected by something that happend to my family. Anyway after clearing my Gold & Silver profits, I shorted Oil at 70 (Should have shorted S&P 1080), the lesson learnt (again) is to short the relevant one.

Portfolio July - YTD up 10% (excluding property taken as constant) - 20% Property, 40% shares, 40% cash

I had to take care of my family business.

1) First thing was to ensure I had the signatory authority so that my dad business can continue (pay supplier etc)

2) Check for outstanding payment - Eg. Singtel, CPF (pay by post), income tax etc

3) Next get the aging list and chase for outstanding payment from customers. Had to make sure cash comes in. My dad is an excellent Salesperson, but business-wise, he needs to convert this into cash, otherwise there are alot of bad debts. Some customers especially overseas are very hard to chase for payment. It is really tough to get money from customers. The accounts were terrible also, some payment were not recorded correctly and I had to investigate several times and correct them. There were also several bad paymasters and had to get them to commit dates to repay. After which many follow ups and even threatening for legal actions. We had to differentiate between

• i) Bad paymasters and no business dealings already (Tough action)
• ii) Bad paymasters and still have business dealings (Have to be polite but firm). Also have to withhold sending of goods unless they pay.
• iii) Those overseas r the most headache

4) Other operations, - Tried to resolve the dot-matrix printer problem but unsuccessful - Removed a wuauclt.exe virus (takes up hugh memory as I thought that could be the problem) - Downloaded - ATF Cleaner, DrWeb, SuperAntiSpyware, booted up in Safe mode and removed wuauclt.exe not in Windows32 directory. - Get Epson dot-matrix printer (280 + USB printer) from SLS and assembed it to work The above spent 3 days ( had to take 2 half days)

5) Got company on-line statement (Compay registry had to prepare a resolution) so that we can track TT payments/ cheques bounce, otherwise we have to wait till end of the month to countercheck payment

6) Spend my weekends doing inventory checks.

7) Now to get Singtel Giro and continue to chase for payment.

Property Investment in April

Shares

Divested my remaining SMRT at 2.16 and Best World. The visibility in Best world is really not there. And I feel that the startup cost for the circle line for SMRT will take a long time (at least 1 -2 years to recoup see NE line).

Property

- Bought my 2nd property at Dakota Residences. I was tempted to buy when I knew that Waterbank ( the property to be launched next to it was selling at 1200psf. So after much thoughts, I bought a 4-rm at Dakota at 1050 psf. Comparing around, i feel that it has more potential to appreciate comparing The Shore (1300 psf) which is not near any MRT/Shopping Centre, SilverSea (totally overhyped high end selling) at 1600 (no sea view)- 1900 psf. Also interest rate should be low for 1-2 years. + Dakota is next to the upcoming Sports Hub (Lifestyle and 2nd Singapore expensove Architectural Icon)

- Sibor/SOR Had to look for banks (Sibor/Sor) finally settled for OCBC (SOR).

SIBOR stands for Singapore Interbank Offered Rate and is a daily reference rate based on the interest rates at which banks offer to lend unsecured funds to other banks in the Singapore wholesale money market (or interbank market).SIBOR stands for Singapore Interbank Offered Rate and is a daily reference rate based on the interest rates at which banks offer to lend unsecured funds to other banks in the Singapore wholesale money market (or interbank market).

The Swap Offer Rate (SOR) represents the effective cost of borrowing SGD synthetically through borrowing USD for 3 months and swap out the USD in return for SGD for the same maturity

The simple reason why I settled for SOR is I believe the interest rate in US will be ultra low for a long time. The low interest rate will not help the US unemployment rate and with unemployment rate still high, interest rate will remain low in US. Also SOR (abt 0.38 as of today) is cheaper than SIBOR (0.438)

I got a very good deal at OCBC (1st year 0.5 +SOR, 2nd year 0.75+SOR and 3rd year 1.25+SOR). Also I got a mortage broker to get a mortage referral to get some dough back. Ha ! It looks like my property agent course got its refund.

- Sold my HDB flat ! I also advertised in the newspaper and sold my HDB property 50+ K over valuation (in 1 day!). Had to spend time advertising SPH and find free online

• cleaning up the house, paint (red wall & TV consle),
• fix several items (lights/kitchen cabinet door).
• And after that HDB inspection, had to fix up the aircon pipe to touch the basin(went to Lavender SimBH to buy pipes/ connectors and saws)