Review: Jardin condominium
20
I joined my friends in on one of Singaporeans' favourite past time: visiting condominium showflats. We visited the showflats - the actual units in the building which will be sold. The development we visited was: Jardin, at Bukit Timah, near the future King Albert MRT station.
One obvious bad thing about the Jardin was the name. Jardin means garden in French. But this is Singapore, not France. Even if you knew how to pronounce it, whenever you take a taxi or tell your non-French-speaking friends (how many of these do you have?) where you live, you'll probably have to pronounce it in Singlish: Jar-deen.
The gym is at the ground level, with no view. I'm sure people will have fun exercising while facing the 3 walls and the glass door which faces a staircase.
The units available for sale are the lofts, i.e. double-storey apartments. The small sacrificial units which face the busy cross junction and flyover are fully sold.
The lofts are seperated from the road by a good distance. The glass on the windows do filter out the noise effectively: I could not hear the traffic noise from inside the house at all. But this means that you'll have to close the windows and turn on the aircon 24x7 if you don't want noise and dust in your house.
We viewed 2 lofts: a 3+study and 3+1.
The area outside the loft is a like a shared garden. It's "free" space which buyers don't pay for. There's a shared roof top garden with spa, swimming pool and dining area for the residents. They can get an unobstructed view of the busy road and flyover.
The design of the lofts were rather weird. I didn't bring my camera but here's the floorplan that I got from the singaporeexpats website.
When you come in through the main door, you have the laundry room right in front of you. This is bad fengshui because all the qi from the maindoor goes straight into the laundry room. (But if you have the money to buy this loft, maybe you don't need more luck). On one side is the kitchen, on the other side is the study or the +1 room. You have to walk through either side to get to the living room.
Kitchen is spacious but impractical because the sink is across an open floor from the stove (people who do cook will appreciate the reason why you want the sink on the same platform: you won't want water dripping on the floor in between). There's a sliding glass door to separate the kitchen from the living room.
The living room is spacious with high ceiling. I was told that the flooring is marble. I noticed long cracks along 3 tiles near the staircase. I pointed it out and the salesman said that those tiles will be replaced before handing over to the owner. I wonder about the quality of materials used. The living room faces the swimming pool belonging to the condo behind. There's a small balcony, and small private grass patch which we were told was not counted in the floor area and therefore "free".
The storeroom, cleverly located at the midway of the staircase, has a high ceiling and is great for storing sport equipment like fishing rods and golf clubs.
The masterbedroom faces the neighbouring condo's swimming pool. The 3+study has a built-in wardrobe and a built-in cabinet both from laminate wood. I was surprised that solid wood was not used. I would expect an upmarket condo like this one to provide top-quality wardrobes. 3+1 has walk-in a wardrobe with glass doors: do buy black and white clothes only and keep the wardrobe neat!
The glass bathrooms doors are facing the bedroom doors. Remember to close the bedroom door if you use the toilet! The toilet in the 3+1 is separated from the bedroom only by glass walls. So your partner can see you shower and do your business daily. What's worse, the glass is just normal class, not tempered glass. If you slip and fall onto the glass wall/door, the entire glass panel will shatter, unlike tempered glass that will only crack up. The bathroom flooring is not the non-slip type. People who have the tendency to throw things around when they are angry should avoid living here.
The 2 bedrooms share 1 bathroom. The windows face the main road. The rooms are quiet as long as the windows are closed. There are beams and pillar sticking out of the walls. It is bad fengshui for occupants to sleep on beds with beams and pillars sticking out at them. The wardrobes are made of laminate wood.
The maid's room, facing the bathroom on the first level, is the bomb shelter under the staircase. It fits a tiny bed.
The 3+1 and 3+study freehold lofts cost more than S$3.5M each at $2,2xx per square foot (PSF) after discount. But there's alot of "free" space for residents to use. In my opinion, the "free" space serves to confuse buyers about the effective PSF price.
My friend asked a salesman why someone should buy this condo and not landed property. His response was that when living in a condo, neighbours would be foreigners and the unit can be re-sold to foreigners who don't qualify to buy landed property. Well, the way the wealth of the world, I won't be surprised to find that most of the foreigners living in that condo are the ones who pronounce its name as Jar-deen.
For S$3.5M, I don't understand why they can't use solid wood instead of Ikea-quality boards for the wardrobes, tempered glass for the bathroom walls and kitchen door, run more piping so that the kitchen sink can be on the correct side, and marble tiles of better quality.
I know I sound overly critical but I think it's so NOT worth it to pay that price for that kind of quality, design, location and fengshui. Or maybe I'm just sour grapes because I can't afford to buy it :o|
One obvious bad thing about the Jardin was the name. Jardin means garden in French. But this is Singapore, not France. Even if you knew how to pronounce it, whenever you take a taxi or tell your non-French-speaking friends (how many of these do you have?) where you live, you'll probably have to pronounce it in Singlish: Jar-deen.
The gym is at the ground level, with no view. I'm sure people will have fun exercising while facing the 3 walls and the glass door which faces a staircase.
The units available for sale are the lofts, i.e. double-storey apartments. The small sacrificial units which face the busy cross junction and flyover are fully sold.
The lofts are seperated from the road by a good distance. The glass on the windows do filter out the noise effectively: I could not hear the traffic noise from inside the house at all. But this means that you'll have to close the windows and turn on the aircon 24x7 if you don't want noise and dust in your house.
We viewed 2 lofts: a 3+study and 3+1.
The area outside the loft is a like a shared garden. It's "free" space which buyers don't pay for. There's a shared roof top garden with spa, swimming pool and dining area for the residents. They can get an unobstructed view of the busy road and flyover.
The design of the lofts were rather weird. I didn't bring my camera but here's the floorplan that I got from the singaporeexpats website.
When you come in through the main door, you have the laundry room right in front of you. This is bad fengshui because all the qi from the maindoor goes straight into the laundry room. (But if you have the money to buy this loft, maybe you don't need more luck). On one side is the kitchen, on the other side is the study or the +1 room. You have to walk through either side to get to the living room.
Kitchen is spacious but impractical because the sink is across an open floor from the stove (people who do cook will appreciate the reason why you want the sink on the same platform: you won't want water dripping on the floor in between). There's a sliding glass door to separate the kitchen from the living room.
The living room is spacious with high ceiling. I was told that the flooring is marble. I noticed long cracks along 3 tiles near the staircase. I pointed it out and the salesman said that those tiles will be replaced before handing over to the owner. I wonder about the quality of materials used. The living room faces the swimming pool belonging to the condo behind. There's a small balcony, and small private grass patch which we were told was not counted in the floor area and therefore "free".
The storeroom, cleverly located at the midway of the staircase, has a high ceiling and is great for storing sport equipment like fishing rods and golf clubs.
The masterbedroom faces the neighbouring condo's swimming pool. The 3+study has a built-in wardrobe and a built-in cabinet both from laminate wood. I was surprised that solid wood was not used. I would expect an upmarket condo like this one to provide top-quality wardrobes. 3+1 has walk-in a wardrobe with glass doors: do buy black and white clothes only and keep the wardrobe neat!
The glass bathrooms doors are facing the bedroom doors. Remember to close the bedroom door if you use the toilet! The toilet in the 3+1 is separated from the bedroom only by glass walls. So your partner can see you shower and do your business daily. What's worse, the glass is just normal class, not tempered glass. If you slip and fall onto the glass wall/door, the entire glass panel will shatter, unlike tempered glass that will only crack up. The bathroom flooring is not the non-slip type. People who have the tendency to throw things around when they are angry should avoid living here.
The 2 bedrooms share 1 bathroom. The windows face the main road. The rooms are quiet as long as the windows are closed. There are beams and pillar sticking out of the walls. It is bad fengshui for occupants to sleep on beds with beams and pillars sticking out at them. The wardrobes are made of laminate wood.
The maid's room, facing the bathroom on the first level, is the bomb shelter under the staircase. It fits a tiny bed.
The 3+1 and 3+study freehold lofts cost more than S$3.5M each at $2,2xx per square foot (PSF) after discount. But there's alot of "free" space for residents to use. In my opinion, the "free" space serves to confuse buyers about the effective PSF price.
My friend asked a salesman why someone should buy this condo and not landed property. His response was that when living in a condo, neighbours would be foreigners and the unit can be re-sold to foreigners who don't qualify to buy landed property. Well, the way the wealth of the world, I won't be surprised to find that most of the foreigners living in that condo are the ones who pronounce its name as Jar-deen.
For S$3.5M, I don't understand why they can't use solid wood instead of Ikea-quality boards for the wardrobes, tempered glass for the bathroom walls and kitchen door, run more piping so that the kitchen sink can be on the correct side, and marble tiles of better quality.
I know I sound overly critical but I think it's so NOT worth it to pay that price for that kind of quality, design, location and fengshui. Or maybe I'm just sour grapes because I can't afford to buy it :o|
