My Home

My lovely little nest is a corner unit 4-room HDB flat which we got for a song. What's a song? In the context of Singapore, sub-$100,000 is a song, isn't it?

Let me tell you how we got this flat.

We've been looking for a flat for a few months but nothing we saw caught our fancy. We don't have such stringent requirements. My specifications were:

• The rubbish chute must be in the unit.
• It must be within walking distance to the MRT station as we don't intend to be car-owners.
• I should not feel claustrophobic in the flat.

The husband's specifications were:

• It must be cheap so that we won't be in debt for too long.
• The living room must be of the right layout so that placement of his toys will not be compromised.

So, we went a-hunting but we could not find anything that really suit our fancy. There was a unit with an unoccupied room and a surah Yasin stuck on the window grilles. There was another unit whose owners looked so glum. And there was that other unit with hints of red paint splashed on the floor just under the main door and a freshly painted square on a wall beside the unit.

Finally I gave up. I'd have to give up my criterion number one. Rubbish chute outside the house lor. No choice lor.

So, there was a walk-in-selection for flats in Woodlands and we went for it. The then-fiance took 2 days off. First day, he went to HDB to take the brochure and queue number. Our queue number was for the next day. So, the then-fiance, at the urgings of the then-fiancee, went around Woodlands to shortlist the flats. The flats were so far away from the nearest MRT station. And the then-fiance almost collapsed due to exhaustion at the end of the shortlisting process.

Then, he flipped to the pages at the back of the brochure/booklet. There they were. A list of repossessed flats - flats HDB took back from the owners for whatever reasons. And, some of the flats were darn cheap! So much cheaper than if they were purchased in the resale market! We jumped for joy. The only catch was, we could not view the flat before purchase. And should we change our minds after we'd signed on the dotted lines, we'd lose our $2,000 deposit (or something like that).

We pored through the list and settled on one flat. Only one flat. We had absolutely no back-up plans should that one flat be taken. So, that evening, we looked at the surrounding area of the flat and we liked it. It was quiet. Neighbours were friendly but not nosey. One of the would-be neighbours even allowed us into his unit so that we could have a feel of what our future-home would be.

The entire night, I kept on checking HDB's website to make sure that the unit we were eying was still available. Yes, it was.

The next day, the husband went to HDB early in the morning while I went to work. At 1.30pm, I flew from my workplace to HDB hub after performing my zuhur prayers.

3pm. 4pm. 5pm. Our number had yet to be called. Our unit was still available. 6pm. It was time for us to do our asar prayers.

I went to the mosque to do my prayers as I didn't bring my prayer garb. At the mosque, my then-fiance called and told me that he overheard two men, whose queue numbers were ahead of ours, expressing interest in our unit.

'Noooooooooooooooo!!!!' I screamed! I prayed fervently that the unit would be ours. I begged and begged and begged for the unit to be ours.

Then, I rushed back to HDB. Husband told me that the 2 men had struck a deal. One of them would go for our unit if the other one was not interested in it. And, one of their numbers had been called.

The man went in, and came out a few minutes later, shaking his head. Then the other man's number was called.

Our eyes were glued on the screen. Our unit was still blue. Blue meant it's available, red meant it's taken. I didn't understand. Didn't the earlier man shake his head? That meant the unit wasn't available, was it?

In the meantime, my younger sister had come with some snacks for us and a prayer mat for the then-fiance.

It was almost seven and the then-fiance was about to pray at some stairwells or whichever corner there was at HDB Hub. He told me to just go in and ask for the unit when our number was called. He was about to walk away and pray when our number was called. I called out for him and we ran into the offices. Even before we reached the counter, we both shouted to the lady, "103! Woodlands! 103! 103!"

The lady asked us whether we were sure. I think it's the standard operating procedure for them but I don't think we answered her question. We just told her to press the enter key. "Just press enter! Just press enter! Just press enter!"

We only sat down when she confirmed that the unit was ours.

As we sat down, we thanked Allah repeatedly for the unit and I immediately called my mother who was at tenterhooks due to the very frequent updates I gave her.

Alhamdulillah.