NL Condo vs. Resale Condo: Which is More Worthwhile As An Investment?

Webinar Welcome and Live Poll Setup

All right, welcome to our webinar series, and welcome on a Friday evening on the 28th of June, and joining us on today's live debate, which is a very interesting topic at the heart of many home buyers' minds, which is new launch condo versus resale condo.

Which particular type of property will be a worthwhile investment for you to have in this season in year 2024? And want to welcome you watching us live at the comfort of your own home, and of course as per all our live debates we want to welcome you to participate and interact with us.

So the chats are open and we want to do a live poll first just before we invite both our teams, and of course firstly we have the team representing new launch condominium which is on my right hand side, let's welcome Mr. Melvin Lim, aka the new launch enthusiast.

And of course, welcome. Give him a round of applause please.

Great. And of course representing our resale condo team as well is Mr. Melvin Lim representing resale condos, and of course he is an enthusiast on resale condominiums and he will only recommend you to buy resale condos.

Of course, today is going to be, I think, quite a heated debate because new launch versus resale has been one of the talk of the town since the last 10 to 15 years in the Singapore property market. And there are of course two camps and two schools of thought.

And I think some buyers will strike right in the middle, perhaps owning properties that are either new launches or resale right in the center portion, having a dual kind of perspective. But of course, some home buyers will prefer largely new homes.

Some home buyers will prefer largely resale homes. And today we're going to see this very interesting debate between the two teams.

And firstly, I want to welcome you to key in your own prediction on tonight's result. That means at the end of today's live debate, who do you think is going to win?

Who do you think will have a better defense, a better argument, a better perspective? And I want to invite you to key in your vote first.

So take some time, key in your vote. And meantime while you're keying your vote, the chats are open.

You can feel free to key in your comments, you can feel free to interact with our teams, you can feel free to of course ask any questions. And what we do at the end of every live debate and webinars is that we tabulate the questions.

If we have no time to answer them all, we will tabulate and send you a PDF to email based on the email that registered with our live debate webinar series.

And also while you are thinking about which vote to cast, we have a very interesting event that's upcoming and that is our new launch convention coming on the 7th of July held by PLB Media. That's going to be held at SUNTC.

It's going to be a full day event on Sunday, and this is an event that will showcase almost all developments and projects with inventory right now in Singapore. And of course there's going to be keynote speakers.

We have seven confirmed speakers. We're aiming up to about 10 to perhaps even 14 different speakers from 10 to 8:00 p.m.

It's going to be the first convention featuring all new launches in Singapore.

So I hope that you have already put in your vote, you have cast your vote, and I'm going to do a very quick sort of debate brief to both teams. Shall we?

All right. So take note, both teams, how we're going to hold this debate is that each of you is going to be having your own opening segment.

So you're going to give your own opening statement and this opening statement is going to be a little bit more beefy in today's context.

So we'll give you a little bit more time, have your opening statement plus your argument and defense as well as your perspective on what you think will be the key points representing new launches. And of course your key points representing resale as well, and then we will go into the rebuttal round.

So the rebuttal round is going to be a very intense and interactive round. So both of you will come up with your own rebuttal.

You can share one point and the other party can immediately give your defense and rebuttal. So we want it to be more interactive.

So one point each and then one point each and then we'll move across and then we will end off with a final voting. Of course, your vote will come from our audiences.

Audiences, you have the final call to determine who will win tonight's argument. So we want to welcome you to participate as much as you can.

Also, just to note for both teams is that no personal attack is allowed. Share your points based on actual facts and actual arguments and actual perspective.

We hope that you remain professional in today's debate and we look forward to a very interesting segment today. So I hope that you already cast your vote and what we're going to do right now is that we are going to welcome the first team to kickstart and of course that will be team resale.

So let's welcome team resale. Give him a round of applause please.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Moderator, for welcoming me.

And my name is Melvin Lim. I represent team resale.

And of course, personally, I'm an enthusiast on resale homes. I personally believe that resale condos are the best in Singapore.

And of course, if anybody wants to invest in real estate, whether it is your own stay or for additional investment, you must go for resale properties. Allow me to share my argument for tonight because these are the main points that I have.

In fact, if you can see just by the arrows itself,

Team Resale Opening: Gut Feel Matters

We hope that you remain professional in today's debate and we look forward to a very interesting segment today. So I hope that you already cast your vote.

What we're going to do right now is that we are going to welcome the first team to kickstart, and of course that will be team resale. So let's welcome team resale.

Give him a round of applause please. All right.

Thank you, Mr. moderator, for welcoming me. And my name is Melvin Lim.

I represent team resale. And of course, personally, I'm an enthusiast on resale homes.

I personally believe that resale condos are the best in Singapore. And of course, if anybody wants to invest in real estate, whether it is your own stay or for additional investment, you must go for resale properties.

Allow me to share my argument for tonight because these are the main points that I have. In fact, if you can see just by the arrows itself, there are already so many hidden benefits of resale condominium properties.

A very quick glimpse of what I'm going to share today in my opening statement is that this is one of the most important factors. Have a look at this: see, feel, touch, smell, and hear.

Resale properties allow you to do that, which new launch condos do not have the benefit of giving you, because you'll be able to see the actual physical property. Second point, of course, is that you can have the option to hunt for renovated homes.

There are so many homes out there in the market that the existing owner has already put in their investment, whether it is 100,000, 200,000, 300,000 to renovate their homes, and when you purchase the homes from the resale market you can buy over the home that has been renovated, thereby saving you a lot of cost.

You also have immediate rental income, which is very important. You also have a chance to look at the disparity effect on price differences between resale properties and new launch properties.

You also have en bloc potential, which is what a lot of families are hunting for.

Either you're hunting for a freehold land plot that is perhaps like 20, 30, 40 years old already and is coming to a stage that there's talks about en bloc, and of course if en bloc does happen, that's going to be a windfall for you.

You also have choices for ultimate kind of like layouts. There are so many beautiful penthouses, ground floor units, single floor plate, duplexes, triplexes.

There are unique layouts. And of course, everybody wants resale condos because the room sizes are fantastic.

You're going to have so much more space compared to new launch homes where the bedrooms are so small nowadays.

And the trifactor is something I'm going to talk about later on in an in-depth fashion, because quantum play and PSF play is one of the key benefits of hunting for the right property without overpaying, and you have a lot of choices.

I mean, year in, year out there's only like 40 over new launches in the market in terms of the number of projects, but you can choose from all resale projects in Singapore. I mean, just have a look at how many choices there are.

So what else? The price that you negotiate with the current seller as well as the terms and condition for the completion period, option exercise fee, is totally negotiable.

It is a willing buyer, willing seller, you can discuss. However, if you go to a new launch project, nothing is negotiable.

All right, the prices are fixed, terms are fixed. I mean, what can you negotiate with the developer?

And you can move in immediately, which means that you don't have to pay rental. You don't have to move twice.

You don't have to even think about packing, moving, having the logistics, renting, and then doing a double move. I mean, just take a look at how much time you're going to invest in relocating your kids to their schools and transport arrangement and all that kind of stuff.

Which is why I personally believe resale condominiums are the best for any families in Singapore, whether it is for investment, which you can earn rental income immediately, or whether it is for your own family stay.

And I'm going to touch on the first topic, which is see, feel, touch, smell, and hear. So this is one of the most important reasons that you want to own a resale property, because you can see the property, you can feel the property.

I mean, most of the time when we purchase a property we are both analytical and we are both emotional, in the sense that once we walk into the property — there's been research done —. Is that the first 8 seconds when you walk into a physical home you sort of already intuitively know, in yourself.

I mean you feel in your gut that you roughly have a sense whether this home is giving you a good feeling or not. We want to feel the home.

We want to see the actual unit and we want to be able to experience the emotions once we walk in.

Inspecting Resale Homes: Condition and Renovation

After that we'll do our analysis on valuation. We'll do our analysis on transactions, and then we'll start the negotiation process.

We want to be able to touch the materials as well. I mean, I want to know what we're actually buying.

If there's renovation or no renovation, or maybe the renovation has already been dated a little bit — we want to see what can we preserve, what can we reuse, what do we need to tear and hack down so that we can then re-renovate or revamp a little bit.

I want to see the condition of the wall. Are there crack lines?

I want to see if they're leaking. I want to see the floor condition.

I want to assess how much I need to value at, which is why we want to touch as well. Of course, I'm not saying that when you go for viewings, you need to open up all the wardrobes of the existing homeowners.

Please don't do that. If you really want to see internally all the drawers, please ask for permission.

But what I'm saying is that at least you can see and touch on the surface. You can ask for permission to check the existing materials before you make an offer, and this is of course very fair for a potential buyer.

You can smell. In fact, you're wondering, hey Melvin, why are you talking about smell?

I mean, what do you want to smell? Do you want to smell the home of the existing owner?

Now, this is such an important overlooked feature, because some of the stacks of condominiums, especially in homes, you will only be able to assess the smell once you go into a physical unit, which you can't do in a new launch condo.

You can only predict, for example, if your stack is facing towards a road. You want to smell in terms of the dust level.

If it's facing towards the expressway, if it's facing towards a potential rubbish chute, if it's facing towards a rubbish point of a potential development opposite you, you want to be able to see if there's any concern or smell coming into your unit, which is so important.

And if you buy a new launch, you can only look at the site model. You can only look at the 3D.

You cannot even experience it, right? And you want to hear the noise level.

You want to be able to hear — is the road noise detrimental? Because just imagine staying at home after you've collected keys to a new launch.

You don't even have a level of expectation of the expressway facing, the road noise facing — and you want to be able to hear what is the noise decibel level. And this is so important because buying a property is no small decision.

You're going to stay there for a minimum of three, four, five years, and these few aspects are so important for our decision making. Which is why you can see the actual facing, the noise level.

You can also see who your neighbours are. You can talk to the existing seller, or maybe if you happen to see neighbours coming up, you can just ask them, hey, how is this project?

How do you find staying here?

You can assess the demographics of the project. Are there a lot of children?

Are there a lot of old folks? You can roughly get a sense of that.

And most importantly, sun direction — are there west sun facing? Wind direction.

Smell from external rubbish collection truck and stuff like that. These are so important points.

Just have a look at this article. This is an article — of course, this is an HDB property, but it drove six families out of their home from this Punggol HDB block.

And of course, as per this article, it's because of one neighbour from hell. And condo residents are a little bit concerned because the project opposite them that is constructing has situated the rubbish chute, the bin centre, which is very near to some of the stacks.

And originally when they bought it, it was facing an open field, but after this new project was constructed, it is going to face towards that direction. And you can only experience that if you purchase a resale condo.

I mean, how can you experience that when you go for a new launch development, right?

And moving on to the second point — the second point is one of the most cost-saving points. When you go into the market, it really depends what you're hunting for.

Some of you, I know, want to buy properties that are not renovated at a very good entry price so that you can pump in your own renovation, because you already know what you want, you already have your own mood board for design, for renovation, there's a goal that you're on.

But a lot of families, because they want to save time, they want to save cost — and renovation is all hard cash. All your hard cash savings.

Of course, you can take a renovation loan and stuff like that, but it's still cash. And when you go into the market, you have this beautiful option, which is you can hunt specifically for renovated homes.

And most of the time, when you look at renovated homes versus non-renovated

Renovated Resale Homes and Rental Income

home, unless that renovated home is renovated to a huge luxury extent, but you will still be able to get good deals in the market. And you can get different varying conditions, renovated homes that has been renovated last 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, or maybe just the last 3 years.

And you can determine based on what you see, touch and feel, whether is it worth for you to go in and make an offer. But most importantly, after you purchase it, the amount of cost that you need to spend to do a little bit of touch-up, repainting is minute.

So that's going to save you so much cost from your own renovation. And sometimes you can even negotiate for the existing seller to throw in some furnitures.

If you like the furnitures and the sellers has no intent to move it to a new home, you ask them whether can you leave behind the curtains or the blinds and all these things are beautiful things that you can discuss.

So you have a chance to own of course renovated properties without without sparing the two three four months to do gut renovation, to do renovation even for new launch.

Even though I know later the other team is going to say that hey you know new launch you don't have to do much renovation, the wardrobes, kitchen cabinets, bathrooms, floorings are all done, aircon is done, but you still have to do a little bit of renovation here and there, your blinds, lights and stuff like that, later we'll come to that.

But most importantly sometimes you can get beautifully done at home with wall features, with cove lights, with a lot of things that is planted into the property already. You can also of course negotiate — sorry, this is negotiation in terms of furniture and most important timeline, which later I'll talk to you about it in terms of timeline.

Let me move on to the third point. Third point is a beauty.

Why is it a beauty? Because you have immediate rental income.

For those of you who are hunting for a second property, let's say you have two names, husband and wife, first name is already already um determined based on your own stay needs and then now you are ready to come into the market to hunt for the second property.

You can get immediate rental income because why? This is a resale property.

After 8 to 12 weeks of completion, you can just rent out the unit immediately for rental income.

Have a look at how much savings that you are having because the moment you rent out, just imagine if you to purchase a $2 million property from resale market and of course $2 million you can still get a lot of choices in the resale market today, 3% interest rate, 30 years uh loan 1075% 1.5 mil loan, let's say your installment is $6,324 and let me just have a very conservative rental income.

Let's say you just rent out for $5,000 unfernished. All right, you rent for 5,000 even though you see that hey I cannot cover my full installment but behind the scenes the hidden engine is that the tenant is paying all the

interest for you. So your installment at 6,324 is split out into two portion, P plus I, principal plus interest.

The interest of 3,750 is fully paid by the tenants' $5,000.

The balance 1,250 goes to contribute towards your principal and what you need to top up in terms of another $1,300 over dollars or $1,400 is going towards your principal as which will come back to you when you do a equity term loan when you sell the property in future.

Because what's most important is that the cost of the loan is in the interest which the tenant has already paid for you and that is the beauty of buying a resale property.

Oh, you can't do that for a new launch property and this is actually to me a very important point is that your entry price now you can do that for resale homes.

Let's have a look at this because why you are not paying the top benchmark pricing in PSF you can pack your resale entry price against new launches around you. So let's say you are hunting for this district, district X, you want to hunt for a particular zone, an enclave.

You look at this few resale homes and what you need to do is that observe the asking prices by developers of the new launches in the same enclave and try to see what's the disparity. This is what we call disparity effect.

Have a look at this. This is just coming out straight from the oven.

It's fresh from oven. The year 2024, new launch condos hit new benchmark, $2,400 per square foot.

In fact, if you go to some of the OCR regions, they already asking for $23 to $2,600. I'm not sure what's going to happen in 5 years time.

Maybe it's going to be 2,8 $3,000. We all need to be prepared for that.

But of course, I'm not saying that this is no good. I'm not trying to say that new launch condos are no good.

What I'm trying to say is that new launch condos has its benefit, but resale condo has an edge in terms of entry price.

Resale Entry Price and Quantum Advantage

Have a look at this. This is the median transacted price right now for reset in 2024 1642 PSF.

And what's going to happen is that this is naturally having that 46% price difference from new launch because there's a $765 PSF median difference. This will give you chance for you to catch up.

And this such a safe entry price there's not much things to worry about because what's below you? Below you is HDB properties.

And basically with this it's such a safe entry price you have still so much room to chase towards right.

You don't have to worry that hey I enter at 2004 PSF what's going to happen how long will it take for me to chase up to 2008 or 3,000 should I go in at,06 and I have $700 to chase.

This is what we call a safety benchmark and to me that entry price is important to you and of course onblock potential. And of course if you aim for properties with onblock potential with a lot of land space a a lot of car park space naturally there's some chance some level of chance.

And I'm not saying that it will definitely hit the onb block because we all know that onb block don't come easy.

But you still gain a hidden engine especially if you go for old freehole properties you go for old freehole condos with huge land plot or even 99 is that are very popular but extremely huge land plot and they have already tried a few times for on block attempts two three four times.

And when you buy of course you will be taxed with the sellers temp for that first 3 years if onlock happens within the 3 years.

But end of the day if you are having that thought process that you want to hunt for on block project and that to you might be a hidden bonus if it doesn't happen you can continue to stay and enjoy the beautiful condo but if it happens it's going to be a jackpot for you and your family and of course there's some articles online each prop you can have a look at that.

Let me move on to the other point which this is of course a luxury you can enjoy larger lens space you can enjoy larger layouts larger bedroom space, living, dining.

Just have a look at some of the layouts and there are so many choices to to look at. I mean, this is lawn by Prilli Brothers.

You can have a look at their YouTube channel. this is a duplex unit, 2379 square ft, asking for $2 over million.

And of course, if you look at this, you're going to have your second level, private roof, terrace, master room, 700 over square feet. And then level one, it gives you a total space of probably about 1,600 square ft².

And you're going to have another three bedrooms on level one plus plus that study room over there. And that duplex nowadays is so rare.

If you go to some of the new launches, most of the time if you go for the top level unit of certain large developments, these are loft spaces in the living dining because nowadays we don't see a lot of duplexes being created unless it's a boutique development.

And these are choices in the resale market that your family can enjoy. Have a look at this.

This in D11 Traos 3-bedroom 1,475 square. Have a look at the amount of space that is given.

And of course nowadays, if you look at the average median size of new launches, three bedrooms are averageely at about 900 plus to 1,000 square ft. This is 1475, which you definitely can feel the space that you're hunting for.

You can also hunt for pen houses, triplexes, and these are rare commodities in my perspective in the resale market. And trifactor, let's talk about that.

Quantum play, which is extremely important because not only can you enjoy quantum play and PSF play, there's this triactor that you can enjoy in the resale market that is not present in the new launch market.

And of course, I know the new launch team is really staring at me right now.

but later on you'll have a chance but let me continue to finish it first have a look at this particular video and this home was recently launched also by PLB and this was the tri factor that I've been talking about because if you look at this the price quantum is palatable for such a good buildup aon this is a strata cluster home freehole freehole I purposely see this freehole mark right in the middle of triangle PSF it's only 4152 PSF compared to new launches which is about 2005 on average buildup area 4639 four baits four bath plus powder room with six bathrooms and a price quant of 5.3 move in immediately fully renovated you can check out the video online at 7 crescent and when I compare to new launches they also have a triactor but they're short of one triangle in fact you look at this triangle it's not a full triangle it's a half triangle why because in terms PSF is at a different level for the resale market and when you have a different

The Tri Factor in Resale Homes

Benchmark PSF in the new launch market means size has to be compromised. You could have gotten double the amount of size at the same quantum, but because of the PSF level you have to sacrifice on your size — and that is what I call the TRI factor for resale condo.

Next, let's have a look at choices. With resale you can choose from so many locations across the entire Singapore.

This is consolidated new launch balance units in the CCR, RCR area, and of course there are so many new launch projects that you can choose per year, but it still loses out in terms of the amount of choice compared to the resale market.

Every year there's only 40-odd launches. You look at 2022, 2023, 2024 — perhaps at most 30 to 50 launches per year.

Every year there's an introduction of about 9,000 to 10,000 units. But if you look at the available choices just on a very popular portal, PropertyGuru, at this point in time there's 33,000 units for you to choose from, compared to 9,000 units that are being launched every year.

And you can choose from all locations in Singapore.

Because sometimes, let's say you're fixated on one location — let's say you grew up in Novena and you definitely want to have District 11, but you just couldn't seem to have a new launch project that pops out in D11 in a particular enclave in Novena.

If you are fixated on the new launch and not opening up your perspective to resale, what's going to happen is that when a new launch just pops out in the year 2025, you might just go for it.

But maybe that particular new launch in Novena has certain characteristics that defer its potential to increase in valuation or price appreciation — but you just go for it because it is a new launch. If you have perhaps opened up your perspective to consider resale properties as well and then look at certain characteristics that you want —.

And of course I'm not saying that all resale properties will see very good growth, but there are ample amount of choices that you can choose from in the resale market.

Which means that your hit rate is naturally going to increase compared to limiting your choice to only what comes out in the new launch market on a year-to-year basis.

So, how about this? Price and terms are negotiable.

You can negotiate with the seller. For example, if you want a little bit of a longer option period because you're still selling your home to clear your ABSD and the LTV — you could do that.

You can discuss it, of course, with a willing seller and willing buyer. If the seller is not willing, you can make an offer for another unit, right?

If you want to talk about a longer completion period because you need to do certain bridging loan and stuff, instead of eight weeks you need 16 weeks, you can discuss it — and of course everything is about willing seller, willing buyer — and you can discuss certain terms and conditions to hit and match your expectation and your timeline.

And last but not least, this is a beauty — I don't know why I keep using the word beauty tonight, but really, this is indeed a beauty: you can move in immediately. You don't have to pay rental.

Let me just give you some illustration. Imagine you need to sell your property to buy a new launch property.

And of course, the new launch team will say that hey, you don't have to sell, you can buy first and then pay ABSD first and go for ABSD remission, and you can claim ABSD if you can sell your property within six months upon TOP.

But later on I'm going to argue that in order to do that you also have to make sure that your LTV qualifies for 75% to take the loan, because you need to make sure your current property is fully paid first.

And of course there's so much stress involved if the moment the property TOPs, I've only got six months to sell my existing property.

Of course I can appeal to IRAS and stuff like that, but it's going to be an added stress to dispose of my current property just to claim back my ABSD that has already been paid for the new launch home.

And most importantly, a lot of families still prefer to clear off the existing home first and they just want a safety net.

Sell off this home, don't have to worry about forking out additional amount to pay for ABSD first while waiting for three to four years and then stressing out to sell off their home for six months after TOP. They prefer to have a clean slate.

That means sell off the existing home. Maybe they go and rent for three, four years.

But when you do that, have a look at this. What is going to happen is that if you sell off your existing home today and you sign the S&P for a new launch, you purchase a new

Cost of Renting While Waiting for TOP

launch on a back-to-back transaction in 2024 and you need to rent for three years to wait for it to TP.

Sometimes you might stretch to four years if the construction is delayed or maybe after the TP you still need three months to renovate, defect check and stuff like that, which might stretch to four years, but let me just put three years.

If you go and rent a $5,000 rental, three bedder for your family, you multiply that by 36 months, that's going to cost you $180,000 in cash for a rental, and you are paying to a landlord because you need this temporary space or because you want to go into a new launch property.

And what is going to happen is that this $180,000 cash, if you have bought a resale property, you do a back-to-back transaction, perhaps you might still need to rent for six months because you want to renovate the resale home.

But if you can time it beautifully, having a rent back extension from your buyer for your existing home, get a new home that is renovated. Some of the families can move in immediately, or if you need rent for six months, which is a very minute cost.

But importantly, have a look at this $180,000. What could you have done with $180,000?

There's so much opportunity cost. You could have bought a new car.

You could have used this money to send three kids to university per year. Local uni is about $10,000.

Per fully is about $40,000. You can send three children to university.

Renovation, you can use this $180,000 to make the resale property into a palace. You can do a gut renovation, right?

You can even save up this for rainy days. You can even invest this in the equity market or bonds and very safe investment or fixed D or stuff like that.

And there are five different usage if you have bought a resale condo instead. But because of this, you need to shift twice.

Have a look at this. Shifting twice is actually one of the top 10 stresses of every family.

And have a look at this. Uh I need a credit check GBT.

All right. So 10 stresses of life and of course house moving rank number six.

So why would you want to spend that and why you want to risk that to move two times and cause so much stress your entire family relocation, kids, living habits, rearranging of furniture, storage and stuff like that, and sometimes the rental place so small you need to put your furnitures into a storage and you have additional costs.

And sometimes I want to also just share this perspective, you know, some families, they have this aspiration to want to move to a condominium and they only want to go for new launch and not resale.

And what happened is that when they bought the new launch, their kids are still young, but three to four years later when they got their keys to the new launch condo — by the way, these are all AI images, it's not a real family — their kids have grown up already.

They already teenagers and they will say, "Daddy, mommy, I don't want to go to the pool with you anymore." Because when you bought a condo, there are still kids in primary school and they will every day they are bugging you to go to the pool to play with them.

But once you got the keys, you realize that you bought a condo with the aspiration to bring your kids every weekend to the pool to have fun together. But by the time you take the keys four years later, they are grown-ups.

They don't want to use the facilities anymore. And time is so important because if you have owned a resale condo, you have gained back the four years of memories with your children while they're still young and enjoying all the facilities as a family.

And which is why when you look at everything together, all in summation, let me come back to all the slides. When you look at everything in summation, all these reasons states why I think resale condo is the best option for any family in Singapore.

All right, back to you moderator.

All right. Thank you team resale.

Very very compelling argument and very good opening statement with all the factors involved. I think all in team resale you have like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10 to 11 factors on why you think resale condo is a must.

And of course I can sense your enthusiasm in resale properties and it's like wow, oh my goodness, your conviction is so strong and I wonder what the new launch team is going to bring to us on the table.

So meantime new launch team are you ready? I hope you are.

I'm going to pass to you Mr. Melvin Lim representing new launch homes. So over to you with your opening statement.

Let's go.

All right. So, thank you Mr. Moderator for introducing me and of course my name is Melvin.

I represent the new launch condos perspective and of course thank you to team resale for giving a very good opening and compelling. But of course, I think there's a lot of gaps in your argument and I'm going to bring across these gaps later in my rebuttal segment.

New Launch Team Opening Statement

From the condos perspective, and of course thank you to team resale for giving a very good opening and compelling. But of course, I think there's a lot of gaps in your argument, and I'm going to bring across these gaps later in my rebuttal segment.

But meantime, I'm going to talk about why I think new launch condos are the best, because they are indeed the best. They're the best for investments.

They're the best for properties for own stay. And why would anyone want to buy an old resale property?

New launch are the best. New launch, you get everything brand new.

And in fact, I also have, and please don't say that I have copied your slides, because I also love black background with white fonts. I love this same font that you're using.

And I would say that you are actually the one that copied me. In fact, I also have a lot of reasons why I think new launch condos are the best form of investments for own stay or future upside appreciation.

Let's have a look at some of the factors that I have. TP effect.

I'm going to talk about that later. There's no COV involved.

There's no cash over valuation. You have one more exit audience that resale properties don't have.

Resale properties, who are your exit audience? You want to sell in future 3, 5, 8 years later, you can only sell to people that want to buy resale old condos.

But if you buy a new launch project, you have one additional audience that you can sell to, which are people who only want to buy homes that nobody has lived in before, with no history. And I'm going to talk about that later.

These homes are popular with tenants. Just have a look when a project completes.

It's so fresh, brand new. Facilities are beautiful, state-of-the-art technology, smart homes, architecture features, new facilities with like a reading room, bowling alleys, there's so many different beautiful function rooms, spa, saunas, and stuff like that.

And that is one of the reasons why a lot of tenants, they're hunting for homes that just have been completed and so easy to rent out.

You have new design, new architecture, new facilities. Renovation cost is extremely low.

Why? Because developers have already done almost everything for you.

Brand new kitchen, brand new appliances. Nowadays, developers are giving hob, hob, oven, microwave.

They're giving you washer-cum-dryer, bigger units, washer, split dryer, bathroom fittings. Hansgrohe, you talk about all these kind of brands.

Most of developers are already giving. And of course, all these are brand new.

Nobody has used it before, and you're going to get everything in tip-top condition, and that's going to keep renovation cost very low, because all you need to do is just put in the lights and blinds. I mean, how much can they cost?

Progressive payment. This is a hidden engine.

I'm going to dive in on that. And of course, your seller stamp duty is just nice.

By the time you collect your keys, you already clear a seller SSD. Just imagine your resale condo.

What if you purchase and you regret two months later after you move in, you realize that, hey, oh my goodness, this is not something that I want. My neighbors are not very kind.

People upstairs are knocking down, stomping their feet every day. And then you want to sell.

You cannot. You're stuck.

You're stuck for three years because you have not cleared your seller stamp duty.

But this, if you buy a new launch condo and you move in and you start to realize that this is not something that you want, what is going to happen? You can sell it because you already clear your seller SSD.

Isn't it a beauty? And that's why we call the blackout period.

New lease of 99 years. The most beautiful point here.

Of course, I didn't copy his word. I also like to use the word beautiful.

And one year delayed installment. And of course, defect warranty.

This is fantastic. Anything that happens, you can call the developer.

You have one year defect warranty to fix your defects. BSD from CPF directly.

In fact, a lot of home buyers, they don't know this hidden advantage and benefit. And that's such a huge advantage.

And you have this

fantastic advantage as well is that you have this first mover advantage. And there's also a chance that the developer while they are selling their property in different phases, they can help you to make multiple rounds of free appreciation.

Free appreciation. So let's dive in.

All right. So let's move on to the first point.

And this is what we call the TP effect. In fact, this is the best point that I love about new launch condos is a one-off owners alignment and you only get this for new launch condos.

You don't get this in resale. Later, I'll come to that.

It's actually my hidden point in my rebuttal, but I'm not going to talk about it right now. This is an existing case study.

And of course, all the owners right here, they're so happy that they bought this property during launch or whether in the mid phase of launch, even in the last phase of launch, it doesn't matter. All of them are sitting on such healthy profits.

Look at the green color PSF gain that they have already made from the launch. Those first owners that belong here in 1819.

TOP Effect Gains and Cash Requirements

They bought around the range of $1,067 PSF. They've already made $500 per square foot when it TPs in 2022.

And when you already see all these transactions happening, they have already cashed out and moved on to buy their landed homes or maybe bigger properties. And even if they held on to it, look at how much it has already appreciated: $2,300 per square foot right now, inside the most recent transaction.

That is what we call a TP effect, which happens right here. Why is it an alignment?

It's because everybody that bought at $1,067, $1,008, they will never sell back at the same price that they bought, because they have already waited for four years to collect their keys, and they will happily stay there and they will only exit if there is a decent price being offered to them.

Because just imagine, if you collect your keys here, you bought at $1,067, you are there happily at a pool and a property agent comes to you and says, "Mr.

Owner, congratulations on taking your keys to Sterling Residence. I know you bought in 2018.

Now is the year 2022. You collected your keys already.

I have a buyer that wants to buy your three-bedder and they want to offer you $1,700 PSF." What's going to happen? I think you're going to explode immediately, because it's like, hey, are you okay?

I bought at $1,067, you want me to sell at $1,700? Are you in your right mind?

I wouldn't sell at that price. I will stay or I will rent out.

There's no need for me to sell. If you want to sell, bring me a check of $2,001.

That's what is going to happen. And guess what?

Not only will you say that, everyone else that bought together with you is going to repeat that statement. It's a one-off alignment that you don't need to hold a board meeting with all the owners of Sterling Residences to say, "Hey, let's agree to sell at $2,001." You don't have to do that.

Everybody wants to sell at a certain appreciation. If not, they will just live in it.

They will not sell.

They will just hold on to it. They will rent out.

They will happily just live there. And there's no need for them to sell, technically speaking.

Right? So this is actually what we call a one-off alignment.

And even if they held on to it, it has continued to perform very well because they managed to ride on certain tranches of the bull market that happened back then. And of course, Florence Residences is another case study.

If you look at this, they went in about $1,004, $1,005, where a TP is about $1,007; today it's about $1,008 plus. This is a similar alignment: all the owners have this, this is the price that they are willing to let go.

And of course when they let go, what happened is that this then forms the new benchmark valuation. So this is like a one-off upgrade of your appreciation, a one-off upgrade of a valuation, and the TP effect so powerful.

Let's have a look at Riverfront Residences, similarly. During launch it's about $1,034, during TP it's about $1,005, $1,006, and today

it's about $1,008. And this alignment comes because they have the first mover advantage and they went in during the launch, and that's the beauty of new launch condos.

Let's have a look at second point: no COV. What do I mean by this?

Basically, when you look at this key point, it's that you don't have to worry about topping up additional cash, because when you go for resale properties you have to check the bank valuation. Let me talk about this.

For example, if you go to a resale market and let's say you saw a property at $2.5 million, in your mind the calculation as a home buyer is that you already know you have to come with 5% cash, which is $125,000; 20% CPF, $500,000; 75% loan, $1.875 million.

But take note, when you call your banker and say, "Hey, I want to make an offer for this $2.5 million resale property." And what's going to happen is that if let's say you didn't do that check and you are

so emotional and you like this property so much, you immediately put down a 1% option fee to the seller and realize to your horrific truth that after you put in the option fee, the banker tells you that hey, I couldn't match the valuation, the seller is asking for too high.

And you call a second banker at a different bank, you call a third banker, and everybody comes back with a valuation that is below $2.5 million. And let's say the max is $2.2M.

What's going to happen is that you need to top up $300,000 cash. And that is what will be the key difference, because if you go for a new launch condo, you go into a developer show flat, the valuation will match.

And this is basically the amount of cash that you have to come up with, which is $125,000. If you go for a resale property and you couldn't get a match on the asking price that can close the deal with the seller

Valuation Gap and Cash Outlay on Resale

And you went ahead and go ahead of it, what's going to happen is that you can only loan 75% of that $2.2 million valuation. You need to pay 5%, 20% CPF on that $2.2 million valuation.

But the difference between the transacted price and your valuation is in hot cash, and end up you're going to fork out $410,000 for cash, which you could have used that additional cash for your renovation.

So this is the key difference, and this is what we call having that safety kind of peace of mind that when you buy a new launch condo, you don't have to worry about all these valuation things, right? So how about this third exit audience?

This is one of my favorites, because if you follow the school of thought of the resale camp, they only have one group of buyers. I mean like after you buy a condo, if you want to exit in future, you can only sell to one group of people.

But if you buy a new launch, you buy a new launch because you're somebody that knows value like myself.

When you want to sell the property three, four years later when you collect the keys, you can sell also to resale condos, you can actually snatch the buyers from them, but you have one additional group of buyers which are buyers that are very specific.

They are called the subsale buyers. They only want brand new homes.

They do not want homes that people live in before. They want brand new properties, but they also don't want to wait.

They do not want to go into a show flat and wait three, four years. They want to go to the TOP market and hunt for those projects that owner just collected their keys and they are okay to be the second buyer.

They are okay to pay that price. They just don't want to wait and they don't want something that is in the resale condo market that people live in before.

So you have this audience plus this audience, which is a bonus for you.

Which means that when you want to exit, you have a higher and better chance to exit at a price that you want. And you also have popularity with tenants because tenants, some of the tenants, they also want condos that nobody lived in before.

Just have a look at the facade. Just have a look at the facilities.

Just have a look at the pool. Just have a look at how beautiful they are.

And these are all brand new facilities. And being tenants, you're like, "Wow, I don't have to put down payment.

I just pay rent for 12 months, 24 months. I can enjoy all this." And all these features are like better than certain country clubs as well.

They're like so beautiful. Brand new facilities, brand new security, brand new car park.

They can park their cars as well, because as tenants you don't have to pay MCST maintenance fee. Everything is wrapped into your rent.

And if you drive, you can park your car for free. You can enjoy the facilities for free.

You can hold parties for free as well.

And of course, who does not like new design or architecture? Why do you want to, you know, pay so much and go into an old condo with dilapidated facilities?

Why don't you go for brand new design? Just have a look at this short clip.

And this, of course, is from PLB Insights. I took it down from their YouTube.

And if you look at this, they went to visit this brand new condominium. And of course, they're looking at all the site models.

And of course, developers with reputation, they want to deliver naturally as close as to the site model as possible. And we can see from a lot of reputable developers that have, they've already done that for so many years.

Just have a look at the land space, the amount of swimming pools, the drop-off point, the clubhouses. These are such beautiful features that you as a home owner, when you own a brand new home, you get to enjoy with your kids.

And of course when you look at that renovation nowadays, oh my goodness, renovation cost has escalated so much.

Just look at the amount of renovation cost that later on I'm going to show you, just from HDB properties to condos, that's escalated so much after COVID, after the pandemic, and of course even though prices have stabilized, renovation nowadays easily is in the six digits, and these are all your hard-earned cash savings.

And when you buy a new launch, have a look at this clip when they visited, I mean like so many things will be provided: the ACs are done, the flooring are done, the wardrobes are done. Bathroom fittings are done.

Every appliance is given to you. You just need to bring your furniture, your lights, your blinds, you're done and you can move in.

Even paintwork is already done. So your move-in speed is going to be fast.

That's going to save you a lot of time. Progressive payment, this is fantastic.

Have a look at this. If you buy a resale, immediately after 3 months, you have to pay the full installment.

Progressive Payment and Lease Advantage

When you buy a new launch condo, you go progressive. You look at the amount of installment that will start.

$561 for a $2.5 million property. You pay that for a good starting point.

Perhaps this will take 6 to 12 months. And then after that, another 6 months, $561.

And then you will go to 2245 for perhaps another 6 to 12 months as well. And majority of that can come from you and your spouse's CPF which can still fully cover that amount.

And then you go to 2008, 3003, and finally when you collect the keys is which is at stage number seven, that's at 7,0002.

And take note this is not even the full level of installment because if you go with the same purchase price for a resale condo, immediately when you collect the keys you have to start paying $8,980. But this is progressive.

And why is it that you don't have to pay the full installment when you collect the keys and stay? Because from TP to CSC, which is what we call the statutory completion date, is still a period of 6 to 12 months.

So you sort of get to enjoy a lower installment while you're already living there or you're renting out at a period of 6 to 12 months. And this is like a bonus period.

You only need to pay the full installment after that period.

So this is the beauty of Progressive. You don't have to to be stressed.

You don't have to worry that you have to rent out immediately because even though yes, you can earn rental income as what our our resale team has been talking about. But what about the cost of maintaining the home?

You have to fix the heater. You have to take off your tenants needs.

You have to pay agency fees. You have to find a tenant.

Maybe it will take you three months to find a tenant. There's loss of income as well.

But this once you purchase, you have a peace of mind. You can just relax for the next three to four years.

Just pay the installment, let the construction complete and collect your keys. And of course, I love this because the seller stamp duty while you're waiting and paying your progressive payment, it is already starting.

It starts from the date that you sign your S&P and just nice after TP, you don't have to worry about the seller stamp duty for three years. And after three years, if you collect your keys, if you don't like the unit, you can sell it.

You don't have to worry about it because this is the blackout period. You buy a new launch today at 2024, you collect your keys in 2027.

If you want to sell, you sell. You want to rent, you rent.

You want to move in, you move in. But you have flexibility, which is why seller stamp duty is automatically cleared while the project is constructing.

And it runs in parallel. Three years construction runs in parallel with three-year seller stamp duty and that is so wonderful and

IRAS: calculating the SSD holding period

oh my goodness, a lot of you don't realize this. New lease, how important is lease?

We all know that now in Singapore government land sales they're all 99 years. We already moved past the era that people are comparing freehold and 99 because 99 are such a norm now.

Most 99 new launch condos are beautiful, good size, beside MRT stations, beautiful design, high-rise, good density. When you look at them, when you look at the performance of 99 condo in the last 20 years, some of them has outperformed freehold projects.

Some of that has outperformed certain boutique developments. Some of that has outperformed certain projects that you think are clear winners.

But take note, we are in an era that if you want to buy a property, you must take note of the lease. Why?

Because just imagine if you buy a brand new condo this year, perhaps it was land bidded by the developer last year in 2023.

And what happens is that at the point of launch is one year old and at a point of collecting your keys maybe at 2027 or 2028, it has a balance lease of 95, 94, which is the top of the market.

You have a product that is brand new and this has the most amount of lease left and compared to all your surrounding resale old condos you are a clear winner.

And thus when you want to sell it, this is one of the reason why the buyers in the market that wants to hunt for to project, they love it because it has so much lease left on its table.

And you don't have to worry about the lease curve because the lease curve, if you look at it, the most worrying point starts at 60 years where a lot of people are worried why.

Because the next buyer cannot fully utilize their CPF due to withdrawal limits and when it's balanced 30 years, we all know, we can see some of the the the landed properties or certain projects is happening already, the valuation starts to deplete.

And of course nobody wants an old property that you have to constantly worry about the balance curve and I want to show you this case study. This is a project in district 19.

Take note this is what

CPF Board: CPF savings for housing

Lease Balance, Exit Planning and Down Payment

happens, you buy, let's say now it has a balance of 82. Do you need to track back the lease starts from 07.

It was launched in 10, Z by the time your TP has a balance lease of 93 years. And now if you buy it, when you buy, you must take note, always plan for your exit.

Even though you might say that hey, I don't want to exit, I love this property, but there will come a time that our seasons will change, our needs will change, our kids will move out.

Maybe you say I don't need such a big property anymore, let me sell it, maybe I downsize, I buy a smaller property, or maybe let me move overseas or stuff like that. And 5 years later when you sell, it has a balance of 77 years.

So always forecast when you want to potentially sell in a particular year, what is the balance lease, and when lease drops, buyer audiences reduces. So this

is one of the reasons why I love new launch condos, because no matter what I have a product that I don't have to worry about a balance curve. I have a fresh lease right here and I love new launch developments.

Let me give you another case study. This is another development.

And this development is interesting. Why?

Because when I saw it I was like, oh my goodness. The lease starts at 208, but at the point of completion it was 2018.

Why? Because it was launched in the year 2014.

In fact the developer only launched it 6 years after they acquired the land. I'm not sure what's the reason why, but when it was launched in 2014, fully sold out.

By the time people collected their keys is 2018.

But take note, if you are in the resale market and you listen to our dear resale team over there and you went ahead and bought this property and you buy now, please check the lease start date, because the balance lease is 83 years and by the time 5 years later, if you sell, the balance is 78.

This is something that you have to take note, because the lease, the balance lease is so important. Now let's have a look, what is this one year delayed installment?

I talked about it just now. Instead of paying $8,000 straight on, you have one year delayed installment that you can get to enjoy.

Of course, some projects they got their CSC faster, at about six, nine months, but typically it's about a year, and you get to enjoy a lower amount installment, which gives you savings. And of course, defect warranty.

You can report defects before renovation begins. For example, this article talks about some guides to checking defects.

You can check out their website. And of course, these are examples, usually how people, you can enjoy and you can engage third party to check and pay stickers for you, submit all the defects, get developer to fix it before you start renovation.

But this is something that is not existent in the resale market, because when you buy a condo that's caveat empty, it is deemed that you understand what you're buying for, and you cannot ask the sellers to fix any defects for

you. You have to do it yourself, and BSD can be paid directly from CPF if you buy a new launch.

But if you buy a resale, you buy, stamp duty, you have to fork out in cash first, and when you complete the deal, then you can claim back that cash that you paid for the BSD from your own CPF.

And sometimes because of that there's some cash flow that certain buyers are a little bit, they have to make certain arrangement, but when you buy a new launch property you don't have to worry about it. And these are the timeline difference.

So when you look at this, this is a new launch timeline difference and this is a resale property timeline difference. But the key is this, the key is that immediately you don't have to worry about the buyer stamp duty because the buyer stamp duty, you have enough time to pay the stamp duty.

That's the latest date which is after the exercise date that you can still pay, and you can pay it directly from CPF.

You don't have to pay from cash. But when you buy a resale property, you have to stand by the buyer stamp duty in cash first.

After that, you can claim back after completion, and sometimes because of that, cash flow arrangement might be a little bit different, right, between a new launch and a condo.

And of course, this is also a hidden engine, which is, if you look at this, a brand new condo has this hidden benefit because even though we all know that you can only loan 75%, you pay 5% cash, 20% CPF, but for a new launch, that 5% as part of the 20% is injected into the progressive payment.

So all you need to do is to pay 5% first, 15% and your buyer stamp duty, and the balance 5% down payment is injected into your first progressive payment stage, and that is a benefit that you have. So because of that you have a little bit more time

First Mover Advantage and Midway Vote

As well. And so when you look at the final point, this is the first mover advantage.

What is this first mover advantage? Sometimes there's three to four rounds of appreciation even before you know it.

Because if you go for a good new launch condo — good project, good characteristics, good developer reputation, good facilities, good land size, good density, and of course we have a lot of factors here — I will follow PLB's mode analysis to hunt for the right new launch.

I'm not saying that all new launches are perfect, but there are very good new launches on the market, and of course we use that to deduce and hunt for the correct one.

If you buy something this year, and let's say you are the first mover during balloting or during the initial launch, maybe by 2026 the developer has already resold more than 70%. They're not urgent and they're out bidding for other land already.

They might increase price, and that is the phase one of increased pricing, and then in 2027 they're down to like 90%.

They might then further increase price because they are left with the last 10%. They're not urgent at all.

And by 2028 they sell off the last 10%, and by the time your project TOPs you hit a new high with that owners' alignment effect — and have a look at how many phases of price increase you went through: one round, two rounds, three rounds; if you stay for another two, three years maybe the fourth round.

And sometimes this appreciation happens for three to four rounds without you even knowing it. And of course, last but not least, I love this as well because if you go into a showflat, you don't have to deal with the emotions of the resale seller.

You know, sometimes when sellers want to sell their home, they get a little bit emotional because they have been staying there for 10 years. And of course, when you want to make an offer, maybe their asking price is 2.5, and you tell your consultant, you tell your agent and say, "Hey, okay, I like this place.

Offer 2.5." And what happens next? One day later, the seller comes back and says, "No, I want 2.6." And then you'll be like, "Hey, I thought your asking price is listed at 2.5.

Why do you increase price?" Seller says, "No, we love this home too much and I want to increase 100,000." What are you going to do? You can't do anything because it's a willing seller, willing buyer.

But most of the time when you walk into a showflat, developers — they are sellers as well, but they're running a development business. Their level of consistency is definitely there.

If you go in maybe this month, they will have a set of fixed pricing. You just need to talk to the representative at the showflat and say, "I want this particular stack, particular unit.

How much is the asking price? How much is the listed price?

How much is the discounted price? And how about this stack?

What is the price to close?" And the price will be fixed.

The developer won't come back and say, "No, I want to increase 200,000." They won't do that. And if they want to increase price, usually the reps at the showflat will tell you in advance: "Hey, I have news that the developer is going to increase price in two weeks, at this date.

Please make a decision now." And most of the time it's true. And what this deals with is that you don't have to deal with other people's emotions.

You can go in and make decisions based on analysis. And because prices are fixed, you can select from a buffet of available units.

You can decide, take your time to think about which stack, which unit you want to buy, which facing you want to buy. And unlike resale — resale is catch of the day.

So at this point in time, when you want to buy in the resale market you have to see what's available, because if nothing is available in the project that you like, you can't buy anything. But if you go for new launch, you just need to look at the balance units, look at

the price and make a decision, and it's so easy — which is why I love new launch condos. All right, back to moderator.

[Music] All right. Wow, that was intense.

That new launch condo team has just given their opening statement and all their pointers of why they are fanatics of new launch condominium projects. And I'm very excited for the upcoming round.

How about you guys? And we want to, of course, move to the rebuttal round very quickly.

And of course, before we start the rebuttal round, we want to talk about how we're going to do this rebuttal. And why don't we also have a midway vote?

Let's do a midway vote because it sounds very interesting right now. So you started with an initial vote before you came, before you watched the opening statement by both parties.

Let's have a midway vote based on the two opening statements from the resale team and the new launch team. I think they have done a great job.

Give them a

Rebuttal Rules and Layout Flexibility Debate

Give them a round of applause. If you are already, you know, somewhat amazed with what they have just shared, give them a round of applause to encourage them a little bit.

Will it be new launch team or resale team? Let me maybe share a little bit about how we're going to do this rebuttal.

So for both teams, I hope that you're ready for rebuttal, and what's going to happen is that I will invite the resale team first to give their first rebuttal point. And when they give their first rebuttal point, I would like to have the new launch team give an immediate defense.

And then of course new launch team will give their rebuttal, resale team will give an immediate defense.

And of course with that we're going to do a few rounds, and of course when I say that it's about time, I hope that both teams will respect the moderator's instruction, because we cannot drag on your argument for the whole evening; our audiences need to go back and rest.

And let's kickstart the rebuttal round. I hope that you have already given your vote.

You have cast your vote, and maybe let's have a look at the votes here before we start. Let's have a look.

Let's roll it. All right, great.

And of course, before we start rebuttal, a quick segment is that we're having our new launch convention held by PLB Media and our events team. And of course this is happening on the 7th of July and it will be held at Sante Convention Center at Hall 404.

It's going to be on a Sunday from 10 to 8:00 PM. There's going to be a host of keynote speaking segment talking about all the things you need to know when you are hunting for a condo development in 2024.

We're going to feature a lot of projects right there and a lot of invited guests and speakers as well. There're going to be a lot of things that you can roam around.

It's at $7 and of course that will bring you to our landing page. So let me welcome our team resale to give your first rebuttal.

Team resale.

All right, thank you moderator. So wow, team new launch, I heard some of course points that you have been already shooting over just now, but of course I have a stash of rebuttal that I hope you'll be able to answer.

All right, so these are some of the things that I have, and of course you know definitely resale is one of the key best things that you want to talk about because why we always want to focus on size.

I want to point out to you, to the new launch team: when we look at size, how are we going to solve this issue? All right, I mean the sizes of new launches are small.

You know, average two-bedder right now is about 600 to 700 sq ft, a three-bedder is 900 plus square feet, you go for something at about 1,100 ft is going to be a three-bed premium. The overall quantum is going to be so high based on the PSF level now and the sizes are being sacrificed.

And if anybody goes to a show flat, naturally the common bedroom, one will be a kids room, one would be with a queen bed, but after you put in a side table you can't really even walk well and you can't even put in like a study table.

How are we going to solve this? If you want to put in a study table, you have to put a single bed.

How are we going to solve this? The bedrooms are small.

The best thing, of course, is to go for resale because their rooms are huge. Some of the rooms are even bigger than your new launch living room.

And there's a reason why size is important. Of course, I know you talk about the balance lease, but size is important because the entire family is living there.

We all want comfort. We don't want to be stuck in a small little bedroom.

And nowadays, when I look at the new launch layout, it's pretty standard; all the layouts seem to be the same, either it's a narrow living room or landscape version. And of course there's PPVC requirement for government land sales, because when you look at this, there's so many walls that I cannot hack.

There's so many walls I cannot hack.

Hackable Walls, Size and Renovation Costs

Are rooms that I can hack. I can open up a kitchen, open kitchen concept which everybody loves to host and all that.

And if I want to open up a study room I can do that because the walls are hackable. And for new launches, majority of them under government lenses, they are PPVC walls and I cannot hack them.

There's so little flexibility. And maybe let me ask you, how are you going to solve all these issues?

All right. Good points.

Good points. I know you brought about size.

You've been talking about that for a lot of times already. And you keep emphasizing on size, you keep emphasizing on layouts and you talk about size is small, bedrooms are small.

And of course, ever since 2013, ever since TDSR, ABSD, LTV, the shift in the entire Singapore for the last 11 years has already been the same. And all the launches that we look at, the three-bers are all 900 plus square feet, 1,000 square ft, we have all gotten used to it.

We all need to move on. Just have a look at Hong Kong.

Hong Kong minimum size of a home is 484 square ft. The median size of a home in Singapore is 947 ft, which is considered a luxury already for three-biders.

And we all have to note that the layouts are much more efficient today because compared to some of the resale properties, there's a lot of wasted space at a walkway, at econ ledges, at the entrance foyer. Most of these spaces are what we call non-efficiency spaces.

And of course, when you look at new launches, because of the fact of escalating cost, escalating construction cost. And take note nowadays when you buy a new launch condo, it's not just about buying what you see on the floor plate.

You might get a three-ber for about 947 ft, but the most important thing is that you are gaining access to the entire project.

The entire project is your home. And nowadays, how much time do we spend at home?

We spend most of our time in our office, at work, meeting clients, fetching our kids to and fro, doing grocery shopping, and we come back to the home to rest, to connect, to sleep, to watch TV. And most of the time, we rest.

And how much space do you need to rest? You're still on your bed, isn't it?

You're just needing one queen bed. You're just on your bed, just want a comfortable, brand new home.

And most importantly is that nowadays when you go for a condominium, you're gaining access to all the facilities. You have beautiful pool, beautiful facilities, beautiful kids playground, lawn space, spa, saunas, reading room, car room, yoga room, you have bowling alleys, you have tennis court.

And the important thing is that you're buying part of the entire project, not just your three-bedroom that is 900 over square feet.

What's the point of buying an old project that maybe you have 1,400, 1,500 square ft as a three-b? Yes, you might have a little bit more space in the bedroom.

You might have a little bit more space in the living room. But when you go downstairs, you don't even enjoy the facilities.

You don't even want to use the pool. The pool is like old and small and like you're like, "Oh, okay.

I might as well just go out, right?" But when you go for a brand new condo it is different. You are gaining access to the entire thing.

And of course, I understand the PPVC requirement, but let's be realistic. How many of us really hack down walls?

And of course, if we do hack down walls, a lot of times what I see is that a lot of people put back the walls when they start to have kids.

And when they want to sell the property, they actually regret tearing down the walls because the next buyer that came, they will ask, "Hey, I'm coming to buy a four-bed. Why is there only two bedrooms?

Oh, I need to spend 40,000 to put back the walls and the aircons and the door frames. Oh, I don't want to buy already." And thus is actually not very advisable to tear down walls which I think PPVC walls are great.

It removes actually our intent to want to tear down walls. It prevents us from tearing down wall which then omits us the possibility of selling to more buyers in future.

And I think actually it's great because if you tear down walls there's additional cost as well. Just imagine you buy a resale condo, you tear down two walls and in a quotation the renovation quotation is 20,000 and then you need to make good and stuff and patch back, put back, relocate the trunking air con and electrical points.

And then after that 3 years later when you want to sell you realize it's hard to sell because all the buyers want the original layout and you spend another 20,000 to pull back. You spend 40,000.

You might as well use 40,000 for your kids education or go for travel in Japan, right? So why do you want to spend the money tearing down walls?

Caveat Emptor and Resale Purchase Risk

Let me throw you back a question. Team resale, let's have a look at my slides.

Caveat emptor — what you see is what you get. And to me that is a big no.

And now that I've already answered your question to a rebuttal, this is my turn to give you my rebuttal.

This is of course a huge concern for resale property because when you buy a resale property, once you sign on the dotted line and you put an option fee, the law says that is deemed that you have already known what you are buying, and you cannot after that, when you collect the keys, come and say, "Hey, there's a wall crack here, can you patch it back for me?" You can't do that.

But when you buy a new launch condo, the benefit is that you have one year to submit your defects, and of course certain rules of defect check is before you do a complete renovation — please do a complete defects check, and that's fine, that is fair to the developer — but you still get a chance to check the defects and developers will do it for you.

They will rectify the defects, and after that you can have a piece of mind to do renovation, which is perfect. If you don't want to do renovation, just do it with the defects check.

And this, to me, is a huge benefit.

And of course, my second point is that how are we going to address this balance lease issue, because the lease is not a full 99 years and there are things that are old, and of course you will need to renovate as well.

Why? Not only is it old in terms of the balance lease which I've just shared just now, it's also costly because it's old and you need to spend money to renovate.

Just have a look at just renovation for BTO property — I'm talking about HDB flats here.

Furthermore, if you talk about condominiums, although this is from some of the websites, it's like a very conservative amount, but in reality we have seen people spending $200,000, $300,000 to do gut renovation, tear out the entire place, the flooring, hack everything because of leaking issues and bathroom issues and all that.

And there are so many hidden things that sometimes we don't know as well. For example, termites issue — how are we going to solve it?

I can't call the developer, I can't ask the owner because it's caveat emptor. And because of this, how are we going to solve it?

And one last point: how about the history of the home as well, because this resale is old — how do I know if there's such issues?

Not everybody has concerns with this, but some buyers they have concerns with this and we want to know, and what if the agent doesn't tell us this or if the agent is not truthful?

But if I buy a new launch condo, I don't have to worry about all this because nobody has lived in it before, it's brand new. So, a lot of points for you resale team.

I hope that you can start to answer.

All right. Wow, that was very heated.

Okay. So, resale condo team, I hope that you're ready with all rebutted points on addressing caveat emptor and history of the home.

Back to you, resale team.

All right, okay. Good points that you have mentioned, but of course you have not really fully addressed my floor plans, and I've been talking about the floor plans, I've been talking about the flexibility to renovate, to be able to hack down.

But it's okay, I know that you want to come across these points, and within your points of arguments allow me to talk about your points. So you talk about caveat emptor.

Of course, it is a definite rule in the market to have this in the option to purchase — it's under the Conveyancing Law Society rules 2020, and these are the sales and purchase conditions of resale properties. Because why?

It will be endless — it will be endless for buyers to keep checking for defects and after defects then the sale cannot even be completed, because resale property naturally, through wear and tear, and we're in hot weather Singapore, naturally there'll be crack lines and all that, and all resale buyers they already know it.

In fact, in a lot of countries as well, there's caveat emptor as well, so this is a very common thing.

And take note, team new launch, you also have to deal with this caveat emptor once you want to sell your property. I mean, like, do you walk into a show flat, you purchase a brand new home, but the moment 3 years later your brand new property becomes a resale property.

So don't use caveat emptor and try to use it as a point against a resale condo — it's just a normal fact of life. Caveat emptor is just a rule that governs the sale and purchase, and it's a fair thing for both sellers and buyers.

Because everything has wear and tear, it is a second ownership product. It's just like you buy a car, there's certain wear and tear that you have to live with it.

Although there's lemon law to govern the engine and the gearbox and stuff, but anything else you have to live with it. And of course, if you don't like what you see when you go for a resale condo, you can buy it — that's the beauty of it.

If you see a lot of existing cracks and all that, you can even

Negotiating Repairs and Lower Resale Quantum

Negotiate and say, "Hey, Mr. Seller, will be willing to maybe touch up all these things that I'm a little bit concerned about. Can I see when was the last time there was a repainting of the entire condo?

When was the last time you did a renovation? Can I see some renovation costing that you have invested in?

Can I maybe just bring my contractor to have a look at all these cracks just to see if there's any leaking issues and all that." And if the seller is a serious seller, that seller will allow you to bring your contractor to come and take a look, inspect.

And I will always recommend to resale buyers is that before you put on a check, just make a second appointment, second viewing, be polite to the seller, get your agent or consultant to make an appointment and say, "Hey, I just want to estimate my renovation cost.

Can I bring my renovation ID to walk with me just to have a look at what things needs to be fixed or touch up and give me an estimated figure before I put in my offer price?" And that is the safeguard that you can have, right?

So what's so difficult with caveat emptor? So I don't get like why this is like a big fuss.

And of course when we talk about history of home, I'll come to a second point later which are the lease, the balance lease. When you talk about history of home, the most important thing is that when you want to make an offer there are good questions that you can ask.

The good questions that you can ask the seller, the good questions that you can ask the seller's representative — because governed by CEA's professional guidelines, all real estate consultants they have to be truthful about the existing history of the home.

If somebody passed away in the home, if the buyer asks that question, they are obliged to give a truthful answer. And of course, you can also document it.

You can document it in your WhatsApp conversation. CEA looks at WhatsApp conversation as proof of black and white.

You can ask the question and of course, if the agent lies after that, you discover that, hey, there's a history in the home that I'm not comfortable with, why did the agent lie to me? You can bring it up to CEA for investigation.

And of course this is already happening in the market for the last many years and every consumer is protected. So basically you don't have to worry about the history of the home as long as you know the right questions to ask the seller's consultant.

Let me come to your third point which is of course dealing with the lease.

Now I want to bring back my slide over here which is disparity effect because this is a fair market thing and there's no need to worry too much about this in a sense that you are paying a price that is in conjunction with the balance lease.

If I were to buy a resale condo here which has a balance of 80 years at 1,642 psf, but I go for a new launch with a fresh lease of 99 and by the time I take the keys is already 95.

If I were to take this psf divided by the balance lease and multiply back to 99 years, and if I were to hit around the same price as you, then it is a fair market price that I'm paying.

Because if I were to buy a resale condo at this price, there's naturally a reason. And the most important thing is that I'm going at a quantum that is not at a peak level.

I'm not going in at a PSF that is at the peak level. It's the same comparison to let's say if I were to buy a car.

You buy a brand new car from a showroom, you pay $300,000. You buy a car that is balance of seven years from a COE, you pay $200,000.

The depreciation is fair.

So when you buy a resale condo, the depreciation is also factored in, but you are buying it at a lower quantum, which then saves you interest on your mortgage loan because if you were to buy a brand new condo at 2.5 million, for example, but you buy this at $2 million, your mortgage of this $2 million is lower.

Your interest that you pay is lower.

And of course, that is one of the reason why a lot of people love resale condo because they can choose to go into certain properties that is of the same size or bigger size at a lower PSF, at a lower quantum, thereby saving them more interest and paying a lower quantum installment as well.

And that will naturally address the issue of going for something that is brand new versus something with a lower amount of lease.

Short-Lease Landed Buyers and Launch Hype

Landed homes with 25 years' balance lease. Buyers that are retirees, they go for it because they can fully pay for 25 years.

And some of these buyers, they are 65, 70 years old. They just want a big space, but they don't want to pay $5, $6 million.

They want to pay like $1 million for a landed that has a lease of 25 years left. They want to enjoy the space and they have already taken care of their legacy for their kids.

So there will be bias with every conjunction, balance lease. Which in my context, I don't think the balance curve is an issue because we have sold so many properties before with balance lease of 25, 40 years, 50 years and we see different buyers at different seasons buying different types of balance lease properties.

So I don't think balance curve is really a concern, especially when in Singapore's landscape there's not too much properties to go around, population is increasing, we're still strong. So I don't see your concern, new launch team.

But meantime, let me share with you some of my concerns for you.

And let me bring also my rebuttal, and so what I'm going to talk to you about is this: the hype. The hype to me is a concern.

See, when you go for a resale condo there's no hype. I mean, at most an open house at the bullish market in during after pandemic 2020, 21, at most it's 20 buyers, right?

And of course, the consultant cannot arrange so many people in the house at the same time. But look at this, what is going to happen is that a lot of new launch buyers are going to buy with emotions and no longer analysis.

And do you know how stressful it is at a balloting? You put down your check, expression of interest, you show up that day and there's like mountains in Chinese, we call renan renhai, human mountains human sea.

And you look at this, what is going to happen is, let me share with you, when you are there developers might increase price on the spot, and when you look at people that are still buying you will join because of formal.

And you might make mistakes because you have entered at a high entry price than you were prepared to.

And sometimes when it's your turn to go there and you realize that the price has changed, or certain units or stacks that you have already pre-selected are sold out, and you are left with poorer facing stacks, or poor facing levels, or poor layouts that you're not really ready to commit because you haven't studied their layout, haven't studied their facing, haven't studied that floor level.

And you don't even know like, um, you wanted to go back to the 3D board but your consultant just whip out the site plan and say that oh maybe can take this stack is also okay, uh this facing not as good as the one you want but might be okay.

And then you are standing at a thinking box and you are a little bit worried and you see all these people just putting down their checks because of formal, and you might just commit to a unit that you have not decided on before.

Because you didn't have enough time to make analysis. So how you going to address this issue, new launch team?

Because sometimes because of formal we make mistakes and by the time you collect your keys you realize, oh my goodness, it was because I didn't have time. I didn't have time to study all these alternative stacks because of so many people that have already confirmed the stacks that I want.

And how you going to address the issue that this is paying the highest benchmark price in the market? And a lot of my resale friends, they don't want to pay the highest PSF benchmark because they want to hunt for disparity and they want to buy something that is not the top of the market.

They want to buy something that still has room to grow. And that's why resale properties are the best.

Even though there's lesser lease balance, but you have room to grow, but for new launch, you're the top tier. You're the most highest expensive product in the market.

You lead the wave. How are you going to grow?

And that's my question for new launch team.

All right. Okay.

Uh I got a point. So you mentioned two points are resilient.

One is the hype and of course the other point is that you're talking about the highest PSF benchmark pricing. Let me address of course the hype first.

Now if there's no hype naturally it's not a good product. Would you wouldn't you agree with me?

I mean, you talk about the fact that resale properties, some of the properties has 20 buyers at the same time coming to see a resale home.

But my question back to you is that if I'm hunting for a new launch condo, and if there's no hype, maybe is a telltale sign that it might not be a good development. It doesn't have clear character winning characteristics.

And the rationale that there's a hype there is because this is a popular location, popular developer, popular product. Price points, estimated price might be popular and this might be something that people are hunting for.

And wouldn't it be a clear indicator if that photograph that you have over there with the hype over there, if at the launch is already this level of hype.

Wouldn't it be a telltale sign that maybe three years later if I want to sell my new launch condo I am going to have the same amount of buyers that has missed out on that launch.

And if so many people has missed out on that launch naturally they might want to get a TP product after 3 years because they can then get it immediately.

Hype Signals, Stack Strategy and Pricing

Something that people are hunting for, and wouldn't it be a clear indicator if that photograph that you have over there, with the hype over there, if at the launch is already this level of hype, wouldn't it be a telltale sign that maybe three years later, if I want to sell my new launch condo, I am going to have the same amount of buyers that has missed out on that launch?

And if so many people has missed out on that launch, naturally they might want to get a TOP product after three years because they can then get it immediately. So my rebuttal to that is that hype is good.

Hype is definitely good, and what we need to do as buyers for new launch is that we just need to come up with our alternative stacks and layouts — do homework first. I believe your consultant will give you the entire brochure, floor plans, and then you can do analysis together with a consultant.

You can look at the site model, plot it in the map, street directory, look at the facings first, and then come up with this

strategy: five plus five. Five stacks that you want to have as your top five choices, alternative five stacks that if you cannot get the first five stacks, you will go for the other five stacks.

And that can be a combination of three bedroom premium, three bed compact, three plus study if you're hunting for three bed. And of course, there are differences in terms of stacks, layout, and pricing — three factors.

Let me share with you this thing. So do your homework with a five plus five method: five stacks that you definitely want to have as my top priority and the other five is my alternative priority.

And sometimes you will be able to spot differences because maybe this five stacks and plus five stacks, they all come in varying shapes and sizes. Maybe there are three bedrooms, there are three plus study, there are three bed compact without a store, without a yard.

But there are varying price based on varying stacks. So for example, this stack over

here, maybe on this particular level, three plus study is at 2.5 million. However, maybe this stack has been a top five but is no longer available.

What you can do is of course you can hunt for alternative ones — is there other stacks that maybe is at a slightly lower quantum but at a better and higher level? Maybe you get a super high floor three bed without that study but it's at 2.4 million.

And this is how you lay down. So you can lay down and lead yourself based on price quantum, set some parameters — whether do you want to have a bare minimum, like for example you say minimum must be level eight and above.

And then what you do is that you circle out five plus five stacks and each of the stack you circle out three units, and all in you have 30 choices. And with that 30 choices, it must coincide with the price quantum in the range that you have set up in the first place.

So for example, if you set

up maybe like I want to commit 2.2 to 2.6 and I do not want to burst through 2.6 because maybe if I burst through 2.6, a four bed is at 3 million, I don't want to be too close to 3 million.

So you set a max and a minimum price range that is reasonable in terms of quantum. And then you come with a five plus five stacks.

Select 10 stacks. Each of the stacks select three units.

So you have 30 choices. So on the day while you're queuing up, you will not be that stressed.

Even if you are in the thinking box, you also have choice. You have time to think and you can eliminate your 30 choices.

See which one has been sold and then you can go for the best one that is balanced. So actually there is a strategy to deal with it.

And in my context, I think hype is great. And of course allow me to come to your second question.

When you talk about benchmark

pricing, benchmark pricing naturally is not a concern. Why?

Because it is a brand new product. You just mentioned that it is a brand new product.

And how do I deal with this screen — and let me erase everything. All right.

I love your chart that you have come up with, resale team.

You mentioned new launch is the top tier pricing, is the benchmark pricing, and of course in the year 2024 you mentioned that it's 2004 averagely PSF, and of course a lot of the new launches they in the range of 2002 to maybe 2006 PSF for RCR and OCR.

All right, now when you buy a brand new car do you have to pay the best pricing? Of course, it's brand new.

And we cannot forget the fact that this is a brand new product. Oh, how do I use this?

Okay, this is a brand new 99 years fresh lease, brand new construction, brand new architectural, brand new design of 2024. And the most important thing is that nobody has stayed in it before.

And if you want to sell it 3 years later, you're going to sell to an additional

Paying for New and En Bloc Reality

Audience that will buy from you. And we already mentioned just now there's the TP effect that you can enjoy the seller stamp duty blackout period.

There's so many benefits. And why is it worth paying for the pricing for a brand new product?

Because it's a brand new car. You can't compare a brand new car with a resale car.

You're paying for something that is brand new. And naturally you need to pay the brand new pricing.

And most importantly is that, have you heard of the five-year cycle? Because the five-year cycle states that every five years what is going to happen is that the inventory level of developers rise and drops.

When the inventory level that they need to hand over and they complete is at the all-time high, and the next five-year cycle is stipulated to be in 2027, which is in three years' time, and what is going to happen is that in 2027 we might enter into a new era of new launch pricing.

And that might be in the range of 2005 to 3,000. And this is of course one of the best times to go into a new launch condo because it's the average price of 2004 to 2005.

Why would you want to go in at 2027? Of course, 2027, that is going to be a new benchmark.

But now is one of the best times to hunt for new launch condos. And of course the five-year cycle is the leading indicator for new launch price growth.

And we have seen over the years, the last five years, the last range was about 2007 to 2009. This range now is 2002 to 2006.

Next range maybe 2005 to 3000. And this might be the best time to go into the new launch market.

And I'm going to throw some questions at you. And, moderator, do we have enough time?

Yes. And of course, thank you for sounding out.

This has been a very intense live debate and I think we have to cut it off at the last

question already. So do give a last rebuttal and last answering from the resale team and of course then we will need our audiences to cast a vote.

If not, this debate is going to last until 12 midnight. So let's give a last point, new launch team.

All right. So my final rebuttal point is this, to the resale team: it's the demographics of the project.

You know, when you buy a resale condo, one of the things that a lot of people, a lot of resale buyers forget to look at, is the demographics of the existing owners. What if you buy into a project that all the folks in the project don't want to sell because they are all en bloc enthusiasts?

Yes, you mention about en bloc. You say that en bloc is a hidden gem, but how many times have en blocs really been succeeding?

Just have a look at the rate of en bloc successes. And of course, when you look at this, I have this latest chart from the POV research team.

The last five years

en bloc attempts versus success rate has been at all-time low because of rising costs and developers are preferring to go for GLS. And of course, sometimes the asking tender price is too high, the reserve price is too high, but existing owners have been trying for so many rounds.

You look at this analysis from H prop, sometimes they will come with the analysis whether it might be successful or unsuccessful. Just take a look at how many attempts that a lot of projects have taken.

And what if you buy into a project that you have no intent to sell? And firstly, two things will happen.

One is that you buy into a project and en bloc is successful, but you're hit with your first year seller stamp duty of 12%, and you have spent $200,000 to renovate, and now you have to pay 12% seller stamp duty and you have to move out.

And maybe all the en bloc money, even though there's some money that you made from en bloc, you cannot even cover the cost of seller stamp duty and your renovation. Second thing is that

what if you buy into a project, yes there's en bloc potential, but rounds after rounds of en bloc attempts — every round of en bloc attempt takes at least two to three years to come up, launch it, and then fail, and then relaunch, have meetings again and all that.

And even though you don't want to participate, because of the culture of wanting to en bloc, there is a low transaction volume in the project. And we all know transaction volume is so important for price growth.

And if there's not enough transactions, which we can already see from some of the projects that have been attempting en blocs over and over again, because everybody has a mindset they want to en bloc, they will not sell the property, and thus there is the lack of transactions.

And because of a lack of transactions, the PSF in a project cannot catch up with the valuation in the surrounding market. And after rounds of en bloc, if it fails multiple times and all the owners suddenly just realize that hey, I don't want to wait anymore,

En Bloc Delays and Convention Announcement

I'll just sell in the resale, okay. And by the time when you want to sell, you realize that your PSF valuation has not caught up with your surroundings because valuation is led by transaction volume.

It needs to have multiple transaction volume on a consistent basis year after year, month after month, quarter after quarter to grow gradually. And every en bloc sort of injects the transaction volume for two to three years because nobody will want to sell naturally, which is understandable.

So sometimes, even though you mentioned en bloc can be a hidden engine, but I still prefer new launch because it comes with a clean slate.

Every owner mindset is the same, and I don't want to be the guy that buys a resale project, because when I buy a resale project, I'm the person that's paying the highest price right now.

Even though you are talking about the fact that my new launch condo is paying the benchmark pricing, but if you buy a resale project, imagine everybody that bought a resale condo at $1,000 PSF 10 years ago. I come in today at 2024 and I pay $1,700 per square foot.

I'm the only one that pays the top pricing. Everybody is sitting on profit.

I'm the only one that pays the top pricing. So how you going to explain that, right?

And thus I think new launch condo is the best because we all enter at around the same price. If I enter at 2004, majority of the owners are entering at the same price as me, and for that I feel safe.

All right, it has been really intense, and let's give both our teams a huge round of applause. Please send like a thumbs up or clapping emoji into the chat box.

And I want to thank you for staying tuned with us all the way as well until the final segment of the rebuttal. And we're going to launch our voting system right now.

I hope that whether is it new launch or resale, you have gained a very balanced perspective today, because as a moderator my stance is right in the middle, and of course to me it's not about new launch or resale, so unfortunately I couldn't take sides with both of you guys, because to me it's all about frameworks.

Frameworks are so important, because there are new launches that have succeeded, there are also new launches that have not performed. There are resale properties that have succeeded in appreciation.

There are also resale properties that have stagnated over the years. So to me it's about fundamentals.

You can type in Profit's mode analysis, is available on our NOTG channel, is available on our PRB insights, is available on our website as well.

Where we explain what is mode analysis and how we use analysis as a key framework to find out the best condo characteristics, whether is it both resale or new launch.

And it's about hunting with frame framework that will then give us a higher chance to hunt for the correct project with the best form of ROI within a stipulated 3, 5 or 8 years' time.

Of course, through time, maybe 15, 20 years later, most projects will appreciate with inflation, but we're talking about how to hunt for the right project with the best potential in the next 3, 5, 8 years' time to see appreciation, because we all don't want to buy a project with stagnation characteristics.

So most important to me, I'm right in the middle. New launch is fine, resale is also fine, but it's about hunting the right resale and the right new launch in every different season, because season is also important.

So mode analysis and disparity effect. All these channels, all these websites will give you an explanation of our key frameworks.

And of course, I hope that you have submitted your vote to see who has won, whether is it new launch team or resale team. I'm also a bit confused because they both bear the same name.

And thank you also for staying tuned with us. Meanwhile, quick advertisement right here is that we're holding our first new launch convention 2024 — PRB Media and our PB Socials team, which is our event arm in Profit Brothers.

And of course, this is going to happen on 7th of July at Suntec City Convention Center at Hall 404. There's bundle deals as well if you come with your friends.

Of course, it's going to be held on a Sunday. Full day event 10 to 8.

We're going to give out four zones.

Convention Details and Webinar Closing

Within the entire horse, north, south, east, west, and as well as all the different projects that's available right now 2024 for you to hunt, compare different developers, different projects, different pricing, different layouts.

There's going to be seven keynote speakers and I myself, I'm going to speak at what segments as well on the new launch hunting framework to hunt for the right condo project in 2024.

We're going to have invited guests and speakers as well and I think it's going to be a very fun event because this is the first time we're bringing almost all the new launch projects available together to look and talk about them.

And we hope to value add to you as a consumer, as a home buyer and investors that's hunting for property for yourself or for your kids or for your friends. And I think importantly is to educate yourself

We're very excited about this event and now, of course, I'm equally excited with the votes as well. So let's have a look at the votes and let's have a look at the final tabulated votes to see who is the winner for today's live debate, new launch versus condo.

And the winner for tonight is, let me have a look. Drum rolls.

And the resale condo team wins. All right.

Resale condo team, give a round of applause. Oh my goodness.

Okay. Such a tough fight.

And resale condo team, congratulations. And of course, new launch condo team, I think you have done well as well.

Congratulations to resale team, new launch team, you have put out a tough fight. And of course, please, of course, give yourself both each a high five over the air as well, just to congratulate each other for putting up today's research to talk about your perspective.

And I want to thank everybody for coming online tonight on a Friday evening to our PLB webinars, this is a live debate for 2024.

We're very excited to host you. Have a good evening and have a good weekend.

Take care.