As many people may know, I have been looking for places to stay for the last few months as my current apartment's three month lease came to a close in Oct. It turned out to be one of the most frustrating processes in my entire life. Housing in Singapore is a much different concept than in the US. Local young professionals/students generally live with their parents until they're married and most expats have cushy jobs in big companies which allows them to live in really nice expensive condos. My unique situation put me in the market of the numerous "room for rent" ads that are placed online. I conducted an extensive investigation and had about 15-20 viewings (not kidding) - the biggest challenge was to find a room that wasn't with a family or weird land lord who would have all kinds of really random and weird restrictions. Examples include: curfews, daily cleaning schedules, no electronic equipment, and my personal favorite, no washing of socks is allowed in the washing machine. This type of random room market is the results of basically no apartment-type complexes on the island due to the rules by the
HDB (Housing and Development Board). The HDB builds and regulates most of the housing in Singapore where 70-80% of the population lives in public housing.
In the end, I was able to get really lucky and find two housing options; the first for
20 days in a high-rise luxury condo by Marina Bay and the second is a room in a much more humble yet convenient condo very close to school in which I'll stay till I leave in April. The luxury condo, The Sail @ Marina Bay is a "six star, super luxury" place which is excessively upperclass for my needs but I found it on craigslist and the guy who lives there (an American, Mike) was looking for a short termer in kind of a small bedroom and gave me a good deal.
Things worked out well and now I get to hang out in the coolest residential building in Singapore for a few weeks!
Pics of the view from the skydeck of my new condo at Marina Bay:
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