Our Home Renovation Journey - Background

Decided to post some background stuff to remind ourselves what we have been through. 😂 So after several attempts of applying for BTO for the Bidadari Estate and obviously failed to get any ballot number, we decided to go for Sales of Balance Flat in Bukit Batok. There were a few options in Bukit Batok, such as Skyline I and II (only a few units here and there), Sky Peak (the estate near Keming) and several estates in Bukit Batok West. 

We went ahead to submit our application for a 5 room unit in Bukit Batok West Edge under the Married Child Scheme on 26 November 2016. West Edge had the most units available. Supposedly, 30% of the units will be set aside for the Married Child Scheme. So for us, our 2 balloting tickets will go into the draw for the 30% first. BUT we didnt make it.... 😑 then the balloting tickets will then go into the remaining 70%. Only then did we get a queue number to choose our unit. 


Though I cannot remember what our queue number was, but we were scheduled to go to Toa Payoh HDB Hub to book our flat on 01 June 2017. Since we were looking at 5 room units, we decided to choose units from 439C that was facing away from the main road.



According to a fengshui master on geomancy.net who looked at the overall fengshui of West Edge, without looking at the individuals living in the house, he ranked units 951 and 953 as the best in the estate as it has unblocked view (some other units may be blocked by the multi-story carparks) and does not have any "poison arrows" from the roads or block corners. We also liked the fact that it wasnt directly facing the multi-story carpark or playgrounds as it may be noisy especially during the weekends. 

For the unit that we wanted, at the point of getting our queue number, there were still quite a number of units that were high floors. As there were many people ahead of us, we were just hoping to get the unit on level 9. Then the painful wait began as we watched units getting taken up day by day. 😅


Typically each day, 4 couples were scheduled to choose their unit but we noticed that only 2 units were taken up each day. More chances for us.. The day before our appointment, all the units that we wanted from level 10 to 14 were already taken.. We were scheduled the second appointment on 01 June, all we could do was pray that we would get level 9. 

 Then came the day.... We went down to HDB Hub earlier to have breakfast before our appointment time. After getting our queue number, we were sitting at the waiting area, looking at the TV screens for the BTO flat selection. Theirs was way scarier, the unit numbers were all displayed and the moment the unit is taken, the colour will change. At that moment, some how I had a feeling that when we tell the officer that we wanted #09-XXX, the officer would tell us that it was just taken and we were in panic mode 😱. Call it women's intuition or whatsoever, I checked the online portal and true enough.... IT WAS TAKEN BY THE COUPLE IN FRONT OF US!!! 

 Well... just our luck... in the end we took the next highest floor available, signed everything and was informed that we would be scheduled a date within 6 months to head back to sign the lease and pay the downpayment. 

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