Everyone is looking to upgrade everything in their life. Our homes, phones, cars, lifestyles, holiday destinations, food that we eat, basically everything that we own or want to own. To aspire to have a better life is what everyone wishes, we are all looking to do better in life and that’s a good thing. 

I am one of them. I also want to have a better version of everything that I have in life. The only problem is, I do not have the financial capability to do so. 

Over the past 4 years, I am ONLY employed for 15 months. For the rest of the time, I made a personal choice to be a stay home dad to take care of my firstborn son (Jadyn) followed by my daughter (Nikki). Over this period, my wife was the sole breadwinner. ( My Wife Rocks!)

I am very much a people person and I like to go out, meet people, have interesting conversations and solve problems. You could only imagine how tough it was for me to stay at home for 18 months. We had to make this choice as we want to be hands-on with our kids and also because we had no one who could help us with an infant on a daily basis.

Suck Thumb Situation.

Luckily, taking care of a baby wasn’t really that tough. I have to thank the internet for all the information about raising a baby! During this period, my wife were also able to work half a day from home, so we managed to spend quite a lot of time with Jadyn.

The Personal Struggle

But, the 18 months were not without struggle. Being a parent is already a huge challenge on its own, and with this arrangement, I had to deal with a very personal struggle. Perhaps the greatest mental obstacle that I had to deal with daily was my ego.

It was difficult to stomach the bitter feeling of unworthiness when I knew I had to depend on my wife to feed the entire family. It was very damaging to my self-esteem and self-confidence. Whenever I had gatherings with my family members, there will always be this little voice at the back of my head that is telling me that everyone is saying what a loser I am. Not that anyone of them did say it to my face, and I knew the problem was my ego, but I didn’t have a way to deal with it.

When Jadyn turned 18 months, we arranged for childcare for him and I rejoined the workforce as a Project Manager for a commercial interior design company.

My boss back then was my OCS Platoon mate, he was very accommodating to my circumstances of having no help with my kid so my work hours were pretty stable.

It was a huge relief and I was glad to be able to rejoin the workforce again. My ego problems had a chance to take a vacation too.

Not too long after, we found out that my wife was conceiving again. We were thrilled to have another baby but as I had just started work not long ago, I knew I needed to save up some funds for the baby and also have a plan on how we are going to have help. We would just be back to square one if there was no one to help us with our 2nd baby, and that sent a shiver down my spine.

Endgame or not?

Baby Nikki was born on the 1st of May, totally unexpected. She was not supposed to be due until 21st of May but she decided she would want to come early.

On that very day, we were catching up on the last instalment of The Avengers, The Endgame. While nearing the end of the movie, my wife suddenly felt pain in her abdominals.

Then comes the struggle.

Should we just go straight to the hospital with nothing prepared and leave The Endgame? It’s the Endgame!

Gratefully, her pains subsided and we managed to stay till the end of the movie. ( I had to rewatch it again as I was too concentrated with her pain, I swear)

We gave our Gynaecologist a call and she recommended us to go to the hospital for a checkup, just to be sure. After a whirlwind of events once we reached the hospital, Nikki was out before I can even mentally prepare for it.

This time we were more prepared on how we can get help. We decided to hire a helper to deal with the daily chores while also occasionally taking care of Nikki when we need some rest.

3 months later, we were without a helper again.

It turns out that both of us were not used to another person staying in the house and let’s just say the standards of our cleanliness is quite high.

The Real Endgame

It was around June 2019 when this happened and things began to take a turn for the worst.

First, it became clear that I was not contributing to my fullest at the company. I had to take multiple urgent leaves at last minute notice, leaving some of my colleagues stranded when they needed me around.

Secondly, handling 2 kids on our own proved to be too much for us to bear with 2 of us being on full-time employment. It strained our relationship to the point that we found it difficult to even speak to each other. We knew we couldn’t continue like this, we won’t be able to care for our kids properly if we stayed like this.

Given that, we had a long and hard discussion about what to do with the situation.

Financially, my wife’s role paid a lot more than mine. That was a clear sign who was to quit and hold the fort at home.

And that was when I stepped back into the role of a stay home dad.

As a typical household with 2 young kids, her income was just enough to cover our expenses but we managed to have a rainy day fund of about 6 months worth of expenses saved up. 

We planned to hold out until the kids are older and I will rejoin the workforce and be a regular salaried worker and then we would be pretty comfortable again with 2 of us having an income.

But something inside me just knew that something was wrong. Something from long before.

Cheap Talk?

I always had the idea of being an entrepreneur ever since I was in Primary School. Back in those days, I would peddle customised name handcrafts that I made with ice cream sticks and some letters shaped pasta. I would colour them and design them to make them one of a kind and I did make a few dollars from selling those.

I would also trade collectible cards and erasers with my school mates when I realise they could make me some money.

One of my very first jobs was with Adam Khoo at his then Adam Khoo Learning Technologies. He is a very inspiring character even to this day. I will always remember the news article that he was featured in that is titled something like “Talk isn’t Cheap”. 

The article talks about how Adam is a successful speaker but I am only centred on 1 thing. Adam Khoo charges, on average, $1,500 per hour on his speaking engagements. One and a Half Thousand Dollars per hour. Let that sink in. 

That was close to 12 years ago.

How can a person charge $1,500 an hour talking?

Well, he can because he has spent a lot of time learning and doing business and has acquired a very strong knowledge on various topics like entrepreneurship, NLP, investing, children’s education, and many more.

People are paying him good money because of the knowledge that he has, and that knowledge is valuable enough to people that they are willing to pay him that kind of money.

Back to today, entrepreneurship had already taken root deep inside me that I could not convince myself to go back to a regular job anymore. 

To date, I have started many side hustles apart from my full-time jobs. I tried my hands on being a coffee bean and equipment distributor, went into e-commerce with a store selling baby and kids goods, got trained and became a barista trainer, and also went into building websites for a while.

But none of them were good enough to take root and grow.

The Big Break

It’s now January 2020. This is the time when my 4 room HDB Flat has reached its MOP status.

Being someone who watches investing videos and books ( and the old-time saying that our first HDB flat is our first pot of wealth that the government has essentially given to us, Thank you ah gong ), I begin to think, is it possible to make use of this chance to start my wealth building?

After mentioning this possibility to my wife, she became suddenly intrigued about the idea and started.... shopping. ( Hats off to all the ladies, really anything also can shop) 

Selling our house will mean that we will need another place to stay, so, you are probably right if you are guessing what is she shopping for. A place to call our next home.

But this is not going to be just a home, this is also going to be THE biggest decision that I can take to either start me on the path of wealth or take me down the path to ruins.

With close to zero knowledge whatsoever in dealing with properties, I knew I needed help.

That is when I connect back with my reservist buddy, Stuart Chng.

He has more than 14 years of experience in the industry and I can’t think of a better person to guide me for this. 

Upon hearing our intention, he immediately began to lay out the finances underlying this and gave us a very clear picture of what we are getting into. I knew from that point that I genuinely had a shot at kick-starting our wealth-building journey. So I told him, let’s go ahead with the plan.

Executing the Plan

Our 4 Room HDB flat was bought at $308,000 in the year 2011. We took a HDB loan and we cleared out all of our CPF for this purchase. Over the years, we also paid down more of our loan using our CPF.

We managed to sell our flat for $468,000. 

That is a gain of $160,000!

So with our new found proceeds, both in CPF and Cash, we went on to purchase a new launch condominium in Sengkang, Parc Botannia.

Cost of that? 

$1,080,000

Safety Net

As the payment of our new home is progressive, we only had to start with an instalment of about $900, which is paid by CPF.

Even after it reaches TOP stage, we would still be only paying 85% of the full price, as the last 15% comes after CSC.

Meaning to say, our remaining CPF funds would easily last us 3 years from the time of purchase.

Also, we were lucky enough to be able to stay with a relative for 6 months before moving out into a rental unit for a year before being able to take the keys to our new home. That would add up another $24,000 on rental, which is still covered by our sales proceeds.

So, all in all, we managed to upgrade to a private condominium with the sales proceeds from our 4 Room HDB and be without worry for the payments to the new place for 3 years.

Even if I would be forced to sell the new place for whatever reasons. I would be able to sell it after the 3 Years Seller Stamp Duty period and not have to pay any of that.

That is like the absolute worst-case scenario. And not forgetting, only my wife is employed at the time of our purchase. That would mean that with me back onto the workforce, we would comfortably be able to afford the payments to the mortgage.

That was the moment that I told myself, “Nick, that was a good move.”

That is the right move

The entire process was pretty unbelievable for me until it happened. I could have easily bought another resale HDB with the amount of CPF that we had and then squander away the cash proceeds on the finer things in life. Thank God we did not do that.

Now we have a property that is highly likely to appreciate over the next 10 years and also be able to provide a better environment for my 2 little rascals to grow up in. Also with reputable primary schools around so that I would not have to worry about their primary 1 admission when the time comes.

One Year On

At the time of writing, I went to check on the resale prices of the 4 room HDB flats in my area. I only took data that is comparable to my unit at the same floor range. It turns out for this entire year, my HDB would be selling at the same price, or lower, despite news of resale HDB prices hitting new highs and growing multiple percentages per quarter in 2020. Those percentage points did not seem to come from these homes.

Comparing it to the situation at Parc Botannia, units had already appreciated!

If I had held on to my HDB, I would have made 0% gains in terms of the value of my property.

Not only that, I would have lost on the higher interest on my HDB loan as compared to the lower interest rate taken on the new private unit.

Conclusion

I took a leap of faith to make this move a year ago and now I am reaping the rewards of my decision.

Don’t be mistaken, it might not be for everyone because our circumstances are all different. There are also multiple other factors to consider before deciding whether this is the right move for you. I chose to share this because I saw a possibility and with proper planning and calculation, made the best move that I can.

With proper Property Wealth Planning, I can show you how you can do it and which is the best option for you to take to make your property part of your Wealth building tool, while also having a better home for your family and loved ones.

I hope this article has provided you some valuable information and thank you for your time.

find out more about property wealth planning and how it can help you make the right move too