Home is where the heart - not the windfall - is.

Well, after being a blog voyeur, I've finally taken the dive and created my very first blog. Ever.

And it isn't about work, or play. It's about a phenomenon local and unique to Singapore. It's a strictly middle-class phenomenon since it applies largely to owners of private condominiums - individually owned private flats - or private landed properties (ie houses, bungalows, semi-detached, terraces, townhouses).

It's called a Collective Sale or more commonly, Enbloc (or en-bloc). I'll elaborate more on this later, but for now let me state clearly my position, to those who are reading this hoping to get tips on how to make a profit from their properties, or to learn how to mysteriously get rid of the minority owners who are forestalling your enbloc sale. Or Jedi mind control tricks to persuade everyone to sign on the dotted line to sell their homes.

This is not a blog for real estate investors.
None of that here, you hear?

I'm a minority owner, someone who is against the collective sale of the estate I live in. This blog is for those who are suffering as minority owners, who believe that the homes they live in now, the places they have grown attached to, the communities they enjoy being in, people who are now (or will in the near future) undergoing or subjected to the traumatic enbloc sale of their estate.

I hope to talk not just about my feelings and thoughts about enbloc sale (largely negative), but also provide the debates about collective sales. I'll not pretend to give a balanced view; there's plenty out there in the papers about the arguments for selling your home and making a profitable windfall. Instead, I'll try to give a rational argument against such sales. The fact that most rational reasoning goes out the window when it comes to Singaporeans making money makes it hard for me to justify my position of being against, yes, making money. Tons of money.

This is a space for those who believe in the concept of home. Home as a place that is intrinsically more than its financial investment value.

Home as a place where the heart is.