Warning 🚨🚨🚨 What I am sharing below might make you uncomfortable.

Please forgive me if you are unhappy after reading this.

I am writing this to share some realities of life.

As a self-employed property agent, I often attend courses to upgrade my skills and knowledge. I make it a priority to invest in myself so I can serve my clients better.

Here I like to share a story from one of my Singaporean classmates that I met during my class. She upgraded to a condo about 2 years ago.

She was telling me – “Did you know nowadays my son and his friends will compare among themselves what kind of housing they are staying in?”

It was actually a topic in school to let them understand the different types of housing in Singapore.

Condo with Swimming Pool?
HDB?
Terrace house?
Bungalow?
Landed property with garden?

That sounds ok. Expanding their own general knowledge about housing in Singapore.

She then tells me – “But the students themselves don’t look at it by understanding different kind of housing.”

“They look at it as different kind of living. Like – Oh! You got swimming pool. You are richer.”

So I ask her how old is your kid.

Then I got a shock…

She tells me Primary 2.

How can young children start comparing like this?

Morally, I felt there was something not right with this picture.

It was a school topic but somehow the kids misunderstood and started comparing.

Whether they are comparing for fun or simple curiosity or something else – I am not sure.

But it is a slippery slope to getting the wrong values inculcated.

Let’s view this from another angle.

As parents, we like to give our children a good start from young.

• What if we can let them believe that being able to stay in a condo is very normal?
• What if we can let them believe that achieving their desired goals is not impossible?
• What if we can let them believe that with the right mindset – their dream life is not too far off and can be achieved easily?

To be clear – I am not promoting letting our children become materialistic at a young age.

But we just let them believe that they are worthy enough having such lifestyle in future.

With children, you need to have a fine balance.

Bring up their self-esteem and confidence enough but at the same time, we make sure they don’t become entitled and feel they deserve an expensive lifestyle every time.

A few hard knocks are good to ensure they remain humble and realize success is not automatic.

Our goal is to equip them with the skills and mindset to thrive in the future

This is why a parent has one of the hardest job in the world.

It is not easy at all to guide their growing-up years and prepare them with good lessons for their future.

I am reminded of when I stopped my son’s English enrichment class a few years ago.

My friend who was trained in early childhood education actually gave me some advice. She encouraged me to let my son carry on with another class if he didn’t like the current one.

The goal is to get him into the habit of learning and once this habit is established – he will never feel it is a burden to go for classes even on a Sunday.

So I enrolled him for a new English class that runs for 2 hours every Sunday.

I can see that he loves it so much.

He has been attending classes every Sunday since he was 2 years old. Now he is 6 years old.

During a public holiday that fell on a Sunday, he had no class. He felt it was strange to not attend but he was appreciative that he got a nice break.

I know some parents might think I am making my son’s life stressful by making him attend classes even on a Sunday.

Young kids are learning machines if they like what they are learning

A habit inculcated since young is usually enjoyable. It is similar to having a regular weekend game of soccer for the past 10 years. We do it because we enjoy it so much.

Will we feel stressed waking up in the morning to do it?

Or will you feel strange not doing it?

I can sense that if he is doing something he likes, he will not feel stressed. And I do see that he likes the class a lot. I will always try to leave a slot in between my appointments so I can pick him up after class and have family dinner after that.

It is now part of our Sunday routine and a learning habit for him.

For me, I failed my O-level English twice with E8 and just a C6 on the third attempt.

So to see my 6-year old son being able to read so many words using phonics, being so fearless and confident giving a presentation in front of many people – makes my heart happy.

How is this possible?

This is because the habit of attending Sunday classes, learning new words and giving presentations – have become very normal and routine. We created the environment for him.

This means his capacity to learn will continue to increase as he stretches beyond his limits and his comfort zones.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/NeilPasricha

Back to my friend’s story – about how kids are comparing about staying in HDB and condo.

Now if we continue to guide our kids with the correct values and create an environment that shapes their beliefs to continuously step up their standards… then we are giving them a solid preparation for the future.

That is the best gift we can give them – even better than inheriting money.

Staying at HDB is normal. But we can have the mindset that staying at condo is normal too.

If you ask the children of Singapore’s richest man – they will tell you it is normal.

This is one way we can upgrade our standard of living and push ourselves out of our comfort zone.

Different housing is just a learning point and not a comparison point.

If we guide our kids correctly, they won’t feel stressed about working harder towards what they think is normal too. It will just subtly increase their capacity in the future.

Of course, I am not pushing you to move to a condo just to let our kids get the feeling that staying in condo is normal. But many people I meet can easily make the move.

So why not you try to explore as well?

I have came across cases where the family does not need to worry about paying the monthly installments for 30 years! But they didn’t want to do it.

(If they done it about 2 years ago before they met me today – they would have been so much happier. The reason being – they realized they lost a lot of gains they could have made during the past 2 years. Hindsight is always 20/20.)

We also have been conditioned since young by our parents – who gave us the habit of staying at HDB is normal and we should stay prudent and debt-free. But sometimes by staying prudent and debt-free makes us just become “more slack”.

What is there to fight for when you are in your late 30s and you have a fully paid-up HDB?

You go to work, you also start to relax. Since at the back in your mind, you will have this thoughts of:

“Aiyah my house is fully paid and I can go without work also never mind.“

We slack… we go soft.

We start to make some less than wise decisions:

💭 Why work so hard… We should enjoy our life…

💭 Wife will say to husband… Can i stop working and stay at home to take care of kids? Since we don’t need dual income for our family as we are debt-free now.

(Once again, I am not saying this is wrong, but sometimes we don’t need to stop working – to do the same thing. We just need to increase our capacity to manage it)

💭 Husband say to wife “We got extra savings – can I change to a better car?”

Temptation of a new car is hard to resist sometimes

💭 We got extra savings and since we need to pay ABSD for property investment – why not we buy overseas property?

(Most of the time, in a country that we don’t even visit more than twice in the past 10 years of our life. Eg some pick London and Australia for perceived stability. Some pick Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia or Philippines for perceived affordability).

But do ask around: How many are profitable after so many years? It will be excellent if they can gain back the capital but the truth is this – many are still stuck.

💭Let’s stay prudent and carry on staying at HDB. But we need to do some property investment. So we buy industrial or commercial properties to avoid ABSD.

Or some choose to pay ABSD since they decided to stay put at HDB. 12% ABSD is no joke. Please don’t think your property can grow more the 20% in a short time frame. In the end, all your profits goes to taxes and interest.

You end up buying at the same price as any foreigner and not able to take advantage being a Singaporean.

Nothing useful or productive happens when we choose to “slack”.

Imagine if you stop growing in your working capacity during your late 30s. Will you get worried in your late 40s? Unless you are in management position.

Otherwise, you will be worried that you offend your boss and get axed off the job.

How to get such a good paying job in your late 40s? Some employers can’t wait to get you out and replace you with someone younger and cheaper.

Someone who is more energetic and willing to learn and change.

Be willing to learn new things to maintain our relevancy

The above experience is not I plucked from the sky. It is based on all the stories I gathered after meeting many of my blog readers.

For some of them, I can really feel their fear and insecurities when I meet them.

They tell me “Gary, you will never know the feeling cos you are young and you work for yourself.”

Ultimately I am not asking everyone to upgrade blindly. This is one of my thoughts when flying home after my course in Taiwan.

There is a second part to the previous conversation.

Another classmate overheard our conversation.

He was telling me: his dream since young was only to upgrade to a 5-room flat from Yishun to Ang Mo Kio.

Since young, his parents were only staying in a 4-room flat in Yishun. And now, he is working hard to fulfil his dreams.

He then tells me he has never dreamt of staying in a condo. Never.

And he is the boss of a company of more than 30 staff.

The next day, this boss tell me if he carries on like this, his children end-goal will only be a bigger HDB or a bigger condo.

Our kids actually monitors closely whatever we do. We are their first teachers – they model themselves after us.

He wonders – how many generations will it take for them to desire landed property. If he pushed himself to own a condo today, perhaps his children will push themselves to own a condo or landed earlier.

But he has yet to hit the MOP for his 5 room resale HDB in AMK. So he can’t do anything now.

My reminder to you – if you really plan to do something, please don’t do it blindly.

Having a very detailed plan is important. Even if you plan to stay in HDB all the way, be aware of what you are giving up.

Comment received on my FB post where we discussed the impact of MRT stations near flats

Be aware of the fine details of what you gain and what you lose.

And if you DO plan to upgrade – don’t do it until you have a clear plan. Otherwise, you are doing it the wrong way.

Worse, you only bring yourself more worries at this stage. Plus, your children will have a totally wrong misunderstanding towards private property.

Conclusion

I hope you realize the takeaway from this article is not so much about upgrading properties.

But it is about the spirit of expanding our minds to new ideas that exists outside our comfort zone.

Upgrading our mindset.

Be aware of what you give up when you choose to enter the comfort zone.

The growth mindset is usually the most uncomfortable place to be in.

For some people, they see difficult situations as a threat to their self-esteem, and develop the dangerous habit of avoiding any situation where they might be wrong. (e.g. Any situation where they might learn something new!)

Don’t underestimate the power of our most basic beliefs.

Whether consciously or subconsciously, they can strongly affect what we want and whether we succeed in getting it.

Much of what we understand of our personality comes from our “mindset”. This both pushes us and also prevents us from fulfilling our potential.

If you are interested to maximize the potential of your existing HDB and plan to upgrade, please don’t hesitate to contact me for a no-obligation discussion.