0913Singapore real estate, housing, condo apartment "You got Tenant" ad by AsiaHomes Internet.


You got  Tenant, Surfer?

Singapore Properties shown in this report are for sale to foreigners.

For sale.
Foreigners can buy.
Jewel of Balmoral.



Image of the master bedroom of The Jewel of Balmoral maisonette penthouse with panoramic city and greenery views. Selling $3.1 million. 

8 units of The Claymore
for sale from $4 million.

1 unit of Four Seasons Park for sale from $5.8 million.

10 units of Ardmore park for sale from $4.2 million.

Grange 70 at $4 million.

See:
Good condos for foreign investors

Contact: judy@asiahomes.com or tel: +65 9668 6468.

Smoke gets into my eyes


"You look like......... you look,  really remind me of......,  Shucks, I just can't remember!!

How come I just can't recall the name of this famous person?"
Michelle exclaimed under the full moon in this humid evening at her green domed Raffles Town Club.




Was she too stressed by work to recall a famous person?

The smell of the the Marlboro and Prince cigarette smoke wafted through the still air in a wavy horizontal line towards  me from Kate seated on my left and her fiancé Mark seated facing me.  They were puffing their 30th cigarette on this September Sunday as we sat by the beautiful pool and sipping tea and drinking beer in the newest Club in Singapore.

I had asked Realtor Michelle to invite us to her Club to discuss further the sale of a condo to Mark after a night viewing.  There was a 99% chance and it all would depend on her.  I had advised Mark to give an offer the next day and he said he would accept my advice. Why not we have tea after this 9 p.m inspection?

"Does Mark remind you of a film star like John Wayne?" I prompted her.

Mark was quite big in stature and above six feet tall such that he had to bend under the Singapore subway train holding rail.  John Wayne was the good guy in the cowboy movies and very famous.

"No, no, NO, NO," she replied emphatically, rolling up her big brown eyes and pulling her gel-starched or non hair-dryer blown wet black hair which seemed to be in fashion.

"Maybe, an American politician? A well known political figure?" Still Michelle could not recollect.

"What profession is this famous person in?" No recall from Michelle who is around thirtish, with the a very fair complexion for which  only the Teochew Chinese girls in Singapore are famed for. 

I had never met President Clinton but I thought Mark's chin was a copy of Mr Clinton's.   I did not think Michelle would  associate him with Mr Clinton.

"Is it Mr Clinton?" I threw the dangerous line, hook and sinker into the deep sea of her memory cells. 

"Ah,  yeah, yes, that's what Mark looks like! He looks so much like Mr Clinton.   His facial features and hair style resembles Mr Clinton "

Mark appeared stunned. Nobody had told him he looked like Mr Clinton over his past 30 years of existence.  Here in Singapore, thousands of miles away from the U.S.A,  there was this Singapore lady telling him he looked like the most powerful man in the free world.

But was it a compliment?  Most people would say "thank you for your compliment" for being a look-alike of a world famous person.

Was it an unkind cut.?

Mark's brain worked in overdrive and he would have to  thrust a reply.

His fiancée was silent and stopped smoking.

There was no "thank you for the compliment".

Mark did not keep his countenance.   Something seemed so wrong. Was I in the midst of a nightmare?   Where were the clowns when I needed them most?

"I have morals," Mark stated in a serious low lecturer's tone. 

That would be bye bye to the $5 million deal. It was a big costly plunder to ask co-broking agent Michelle to invite us to her Club since Mark had already told me he wanted to offer and buy the condo.  Why take such a risk with an unknown co-broking realtor? 

You don't get $5 million dollar real estate deals every day and here, your co-broking agent just said "Clinton".   

Mark continued:
"I have gone wayward so many times in the States and in Europe. I travel a lot. I have known this woman for a long time"

Is this a confession?  How many children did he sire? In which continent?  I was all ears.

"I have lived in sin for  the last fifteen years." 

No big deal.  It is part of the Caucasian culture and is present  in conservative Singapore although the Playboy magazine is banned.  

But with whom and how many women were involved?

"There is that person  I have had been wayward with throughout the years. She is my kind of girl, not too shy. She's always in my mind. She will never be a one night stand and I am into something good."

We held our breath.

"I spend half a lifetime looking for love and discovered her in the White House"

Was she an intern?  Could he have searched for love in the wrong place?

"I have found a friend and lover." Mark paused.  

"She is none other than Kate Karenisky!"

Simultaneously, Mark reached for the hand of his fiancée, clasped her hand tightly and looked straight into her eyes to re-validate his love.

"They say all true love is blind, smoke gets in your eyes...?" This is their song.  
This was true love and smoke did get into my eyes. But the smoke came from the cigarettes of Kate and Mark as Mark declared "I love you" publicly not in three little words, but in humor, to his bluish grey eyed beauty from Austria.

The spontaneous declaration from a true love is always magical and Michelle and I were transmitted with an inner  warmth in our hearts, that could not be expressed in words.

I wiped the sweat off my eyebrows and changed topic.

"Well, there is Realtor Dave marketing the same condo and he was asking for a different price."

"Maybe, we should ask Dave for a free breakfast at his Club to discuss about the condo, now that we have a free evening tea?" Mark chipped in.

Michelle was lost for words. You could hear a pin drop in the still of the night.
Troubled lines creased her forehead. She was not the exclusive marketing agent as she had told us before. 
Actually the Owner had at least 2 agents.

Before she could reply, Kate jabbed at Mark's elbow.  She was a sensitive soul and only a woman with a kind heart could sense distress in another woman about to lose her bread and butter to the competitor. 

Mark was teasing Michelle again, testing whether Asians have a sense of humor.   It was not in his psyche or integrity to play one realtor against another.  Anyway, I had told Michelle that she should tell the Seller the name of our prospective Buyer to avoid misunderstanding. 

Michelle was confident of her close working relationship with the Seller.  She was the most confident realtor in Singapore.

"You are Mark's conscience?" I asked Kate as she put a restraining collar on Mark who has just put Michelle in the line of fire.

The tension eased into small talk. Michelle talked about the loss from $28,000 to $20,000 of her Club membership and further losses from her Fort Canning Club membership value decline saying she would give back the latter to the Club if the value dropped much further. She enthralled us with her work stories as only a chatterbox could.   Mark couldn't pronounce "Teochew", a dialect of Michelle.  In between, she  also managed to get Mark to give an offer after the fifth time. What a super sales realtor.  A top gun. 

It was past 11.15 p.m and the Club usually closes at 11 p.m. As we left, I checked the Prince cigarette box on the table and smelled the tobacco to check out its aroma.   The box was empty as no true chain smoker would leave any cigarette behind.

Did I ask Mark to stop chain smoking? At almost every condo visited, he needed to smoke.     

"Have you tried a nicotine patch?" I asked him once.
"I have chewed it off!" he laughed.

It just seems sad that this young couple would chain smoke when they have everything and much more than 90% of the world population.

Like most sole breadwinners with a family to support and money to pay the expensive Chinese tuition fees, I have to watch every dime.  

Mark is thirtyish and all of us will want his worries -  how to get the best returns for his investment and which exotic ski resort  to go for holidays every year.  He is near the pinnacle of  his profession and will rise much higher given his excellent people management flair. 

Mark, there is a message inside the moon cake but it is not a message asking you to rebel against the Mongols.  The moon cake festival ended on September 12, 2000; this message via the internet moon cake to you is: 

"Don't let excessive smoking make you ill in later years.  Good health when you are fiftish will enable you to appreciate your true love. Don't chew off the nicotine patch!"

       Surfers renting to Expats

You got tenant?

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Last Updated:
15 Sep 2000.

This is an educational article for  Training first-time asiahomes.com realtors using pictures
It is also published in
Singapore family stories
both sponsored by AsiaHomes Internet