+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dear Celivia

1. Yes, I fully agree with your views.

2. To me, anyone who is contemplating to get married and is yet thinkng about the pre-nup, should honestly and seriously examine their own underlying thinking: Am I seriously and truly loving my partner unconditionally now or only with one or more conditions, as I actually love myself more than I love my life-partner?

3. Unless, we can capable and truly loving our partner unconditionally in the first place, the marriage is most likely to fail, as self-interests will continue to predominate in one’s thinking rather than this willingness and readiness to prepare to sacrifice oursevles and our one interests/happiness where and when neccessary, for the sake of loving our partner more than we actually love ourselves.

4. Thus, personally, I think people who are thinking of pre-nup, is in effect planning for their marriage to fail in the first place. At the basic mininum, they have actually entertained their own serious seld-doubt and the possibility of a marriage failure in the first place and this kind of negative thinking will in itself, become a self-fullfiling prophesy eventually? Why?

5. Because this, in itself, is clearly reflective of a form of “I first, you second” type of “conditional” love and this kind of limited love is very unliklely able to withstand the social stress of a marriage committment especially when this “I”/my self interest first” types of self-centred and human selfish limited tyoe of conditional love/life attitude is allowed to continue to pre-dominate in one of the spouses’mind and thinking.

5. In my mind too, UNTIL the day we cantruly and honestly ask ourselves whether they are truly able to, willing to and ready to always prepared to die for our life partners unconditonally where and when required to at all times, only when we can and are able to receive a clear and resounding “yes”, we are never truly ready for marriage, ourselves. Nor are we likely able to committ ourselves fully into a marriage.

6. Marriage is a life-time committment and a sacred institution which is not to be treated lightly, such as buying a property, as some mmbers seems to be comparing it to. When we freely and willingly on our free accord to delberately and purposively choose to openly publicly undertakes the wedding vows but subsequently fail to honour it dutifully, we would have also destroyed our own personal integrity and words of honour AND if we choose to willingly fail in our words of honour and live up to its full committments publicly, who then can trust and believe in us again in future?

7. Marriage is NOT something we can treat light and play with nor can we afford to play with such a serious life issue.

8. IF we are in doubt over our own readiness for marriage or/and ability to stay committed towards loving our spouse UNCONDITIONALLY (without any attached conditons and always willing to sarifice ourselves in deference to our spouse interests and happiness) or has doubt in our life partner or the actual relationship, let us not hasten ouselves into a marriage yet;- let us take the neccessary time and invest in it properly, to learn to work out and properly resolve the underlying relationship problem first before entering the marriage institution. It will serve to protect and prolong the relationship (and eventually the marriage too) much longer if one is in place subsequently.

9. For your kind update, please.

10. Thank you.

regards,
Kenneth KOH

Dear meilin,

a semiD landed property either in Katong or Changi area.

Cheers,
Kenneth KOH

********************************
Dear Resiwealth,

1. I refer to the a/m quote in your post.

2. Why should we allowed ourselves to be “judged” externally by how we look and say to others?
Is this really that important to you personally and to other Australians in general?

3. The essence in your thread can be better coined as “How to add value and improve a house’s street appeal with minimal costs through (cosmetic) renovation?”, isn’t it?

4. for your kind update and due considerations,please.

5. Thank you.

regards,
Kenneth KOH

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Dear Grossrealisation and Resiwealth,

1. I think we all have our own different approach to doing business and serving our clientele depending on our own marketing/targetted niche.

2. While Resiwealth’s a/m requirement is reflective of the many requirements normally required by an average investor, it is by no means the only way to do business.

3. Personally, I did not like this approach nor enjoy the spirit of JV co-operation/collabration under such a approach at all. This is becuase it does not provide us with the correct basis to build a long term business trust relationship between 2 willing parties concerned.

4. By requiring all these “legal” safeguards in the business contract, implicitly spekaing, the underlying spirit is one, where there seems to be “no/minimal” trust between the JV partners and both p[arties operating on the basis competing and conflicting personal interests at hand. How then can/do we expect to succeed together in this kind of working thier “relationship”, when at the outset, we are suggesting and openly telling vendors/JV partners-investors in writing that we do not actually trust ourselves/our own “people-judgement” capability and “them” intrinsically as a person, saved for the legal contract to be signed first. In short, we prefer to trust the paper contract per se, rather than the real personhood behind the 2 parties involved in this the contractual relationship.

5. Not only that, the official thinking and underlying spirit behind this type of business relationship is that both the vendor and investors are “intrinsically selfish” people out to pursue their own interests even at the expense at the other party concerned. It is further assumed that the vednor is merely trying to “sell” something, to the investors and profit himself, at the latter’s expense. Thus,legal safeguards are deemed neccessary pre-conditions for the contract to work, thereby endorsing that both the vendors and investors are actually allowed to have conflicting interests and hidden agenda at each other’s expense.

6. If there is such a doubt in the investors’mind in the first place, in my mind, I rather that my JV partners-investors clear them first by doing their own required due diligence, and by willing to trust themselves first by getting to know me and my recommended products better first before they actually put any monies with me;- instead of choosing to “conveniently ignored” their own existing inner self-doubts regarding my personal integrity and honour as a person intriniscally as well as about himself as a intrinsic person too.

7. A business relationship which is based on contractual safeguards, actually denigrates our human existence and values and actually go against the original spirit and intentions of 2 willing parties to come together to learn to trust one another and with a common joint interests to successfully co-operate/collaborate together for the collective good. It will profit none except for the affected lawyers concerned.

8. Thus, personally, I still beleive that prefer the Oriental way of doing business based on mutual respect and an ongoing personal knowledge and basic trust relationship between the vendor and the investors before we proceed to extend that personal relationship into the “business” context by learning to co-operate and to work successfully together with one another for the joint enterprises collective good.

8. For your kind update and further comments and discssion, please.

9. Thank you.

regards,
Kenneth KOH

***********************************
Dear Jester,

1. What’s wrong exactly about CWB that you should “smelt a rat and walked away”?

2. You said, “They(CWB) charge at market rates, plus a 3% commission for doing it all for you.”
Do you seriously expect CWB to do the house construction and take all the building risks, for free for its clients?

3. What do you seriously do, if you are in their position?

4. I am also wondering why you said that won’t it work for you and the other investors?

5. Looking forward to hearing and learning from your reply soon, please.

6. Thank you.

regards,
Kenneth KOH

************************************
Dear Hellman,

1. Thanks for sharing with us, what Donald Trump has said regarding investing in prestige properties sectors.

2. I agree with Donald that the prestige property marekt segment is a highly specialised and niche market segment, which varies greatly from the mass market sector.

3. The operating environment and rules of games for property investing are quite different indeed. I believe that these include the following:

a. very small and limited market segment and resale market.

b. high pricings which serves as a sort of exclusiveness and barrier to limit on;u a small number of exclusive players capable of investing/trading into this market segment.

c. players do have other sources of high incomes.

d. the main emphasis among the players are social prestige and wealth preservation and security, rather than capital growth is the rule of the game.

e. lower leverage used by the players to finance their property purchases.

f. property trading activities tends to boom/bust in conjunction with/conincides with the traditional business cycle/economic booms and busts.

g. prestige properties being regarded generally as a social prestige symbols for high nett worth individuals to openly display off their financial wealth, the scarcer, and more exclusive the prestige properties, the more socially desirable they are to the players and thus the higher the price which they are able to command in the exclusive but limite prestige property market segment.

h. Personal building branding create premium to pricing of prestige properties.

i. Scarcity of properties in itself, is not sufficient condition for it ot be automatically translated into a higher prices, all things being equal.

j. Neither do normal demand for properties in itself per se, automatically translates itself into higher prices, all thing being equal.

k. Effective market demand = existing competition in demand and different level of prices being offered for a particular properties by the competing buyers.

l. inefficient market information and pricing ofter prevails in such exclusive market segment.

m. Boom and Bust scenarios often happens in this market segment, rather than a soft landing at the end of each property cycle if there is one indeed.

n. the lesser the number of unit resale, the more socially desirable and hence the higher the reseale price for the unit, other things being equal.

4. I have read about/seen such kind of play in real life operations in the Goldcoast property market previously.

5. In the early 1970s, it was mainly the Japanese investors, in the 1980s, it was mainly the Taiwanese investors, in the 1990s it was mainly the ASEAN Asian investors etc.

6. I think the next wave of investors is likely to come from the wealthy investors from Mainland China or from Arab OPEC countries.

7. For your further discussion and comments, please.

8. Thank you.

regards,
Kenneth KOH

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dear Michael and Amanda,

1. Very well said indeed.

2. Thanks.

regards,
Kenneth KOH

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dear Resiwealth,

1. I must say that you are indeed very rich in experiences and “toughly-tested” and a very wise developer indeed.

2. What will be some precious gems which you can care to share with the new novice developers in the forum, briefly in summary form, please?

3. Looking forward to hearing and learning from you again soon.

4. Thank you.

regards,
Kenneth KOH

***************************************
Dear Mei,

1. Congratulations and good for you and your associates on your successful property investing in Singapore.

2. The report says the vendors are asking 50% more than what they have paid for and then went on to implicitly “doubt” if they would get it.

3. The transactions are still not done yet, as far as I understand from the said report, though I do not rule out the possibility of some real transactions having actually taken place in reality.

4. There was also some article in Taipei Times newspapers reporting about this too. The same report went on to add that the interests are basically from overseas investors from the Arab oil monies and investors from the Chinese Mainland China.

5. So to me and from my research and market monitoring, this is merely an initial speculative play at the high end of the Singapore property market among the developers and their associates as well as a select group of new “specu-investors” clients like your goodself, who are in effect, trying to talk up the property market in Singapore, to trigger off its eventual boom.

6. The URA is reportedly investigating into this present property market speculation trend, in partcular, the level and legality of the unit on-sales as well as the number of cases of direct subsales by the local developers.

7. Presently, I honestly believe that the real market sentiments, underlying the Singapore property market, are still presently “weak” at the grassroot level, due to the present (and continued) oversupply of condo units (over the next few years!).

8. As far as the mass market is concerned, the flash estimate for the HDB resale index for third quarter of 2005, is still dropping down to 101.2, some 26% below its last market peak price level achieved during late 1996-early 1997 period.

9. Personally, thus, I still seriously doubt there is indeed any initial sign for a real property boom taking place within the Singapore property market itself, at this point in time, saved for this high end property market speculation phenomenon, which is presently being reported ( for a certain purpose, I believe).

10. I think people like Baloo can agree with me on that too.

11. Like IMAC, I still find it “too risky” for myself, to be able to safely invest into the Singapore property market at this point in time, even though I am presently and seriously contemplating to.

12. Perhaps, you can try to convince me (and the other investors with similar inclinations too) otherwise?

13. For your kind update, please.

14. Thank you.

regards,
Kenneth KOH

HI Sam027,

1. Welcome to our property investing forum at propertyinvesting.com.

2. Have you also visited the Jan Somer’s Property Forum site at http://www.somersoft.com.au/forum.

3. What are your present investing goals and investing budget like? Whereabouts in Perth will you be looking at investing into in the near future?

4. Looking forward to hearing from you again soon, please.

5. Thank you.

regards,
Kenneth KOH