You will bring the course together into a written home plan and a loan watchlist you update each year.
Over this course, Farah and Hakim built eight separate pieces of work: a ten-year comparison, an eligibility note, a stamp duty calculator, a loan limit worksheet, a loan comparison, a purchase timeline, an annual cost sheet, and a break-even sum. Each answered one question at one moment. Together they could answer the question that matters for the next five years: what do we do, and when do we look again? This project brings them into one home plan with a watchlist you update each year. Allow about an hour.
All figures below are examples from Farah and Hakim's case. Yours come from your own sheets and the current HDB, IRAS, MAS and CPF Board figures.
Produce a workbook with two parts. The first is the home plan: one page that records the decisions you made and the figures behind them, with the source of each. The second is the watchlist: a table, one row per year for five years, of the figures that tell you when to act on the loan or the home. Finish by setting a review date and listing the three figures you will look up again before acting on anything.
Open the files from each module's exercise: lesson 1.5, Compare two homes over ten years; lesson 2.4, Get your HDB Flat Eligibility letter and read it; lesson 3.4, Build a stamp duty calculator; and lesson 4.5, Work out your own maximum loan. Copy the result of each into the first tab, as one line with a date: the home you chose and why, the flats and grants you are eligible for and the letter's validity date, the stamp duty on your purchase, and your loan limit with the rule that sets it.
Farah and Hakim's first four lines read, in short: resale four-room in Bedok, chosen for moving in sooner and living near Farah's parents; eligible, with the grants and HDB loan stated in their HFE letter; stamp duty S$11,600 at the invented rates, to be replaced with the IRAS figure; loan limit about S$564,200, set by the MSR.
Add three more lines from the later exercises: the loan you chose, from lesson 5.5, Compare an HDB loan and three bank packages, with its rate, lock-in end date and switch trigger; the completion date and any open payments from lesson 6.5, Build your purchase timeline; and the yearly cost of owning from lesson 7.4, Build your annual cost of ownership.
For Farah and Hakim: Package C, 2.35% fixed for three years, lock-in ending in month 36, switch trigger "compare every option if the offer at lock-in end is more than half a point above the HDB rate"; completed in month 4, renovation stage two due in month 12; yearly cost of owning about S$21,868 against S$36,000 of rent for a similar flat.
On a second tab, make a table with one row per year and these columns: year, loan balance at year end, current rate, lock-in end date, market rate for a comparable package, the switch trigger, remaining lease, the earliest date you could sell, and notes.
Fill in what you know now. The balance comes from your loan schedule. Farah and Hakim's, at 2.35% for three years and an assumed 2.90% after repricing, ran from S$427,000 to about S$414,296 at the end of year one, S$401,291 at year two, S$387,976 at year three, S$375,183 at year four and S$362,013 at year five. The remaining lease starts at 62 years and drops by one each row. The earliest sale date is the end of the MOP, from the HDB rules for their flat.
Leave the market rate column for each review. That is the figure you look up each year, from bank websites or a broker, and the gap between it and your current rate is what tells you whether to run the break-even from lesson 8.2, Work out the break-even on switching.
At the bottom of the plan, add the year you could first sell and the cash you would expect from a sale, worked out as in lesson 8.3, Selling: proceeds, the CPF refund and the timing, at a price you choose and at a lower one. Note whether you would sell first or buy first, from lesson 8.4, Upgrading or right-sizing in the right order.
Then set the next review date. A good default is once a year, plus three months before any lock-in ends. Farah and Hakim chose their completion anniversary each year, and a separate reminder in month 33 for the lock-in.
A finished workbook has a one-page home plan with seven dated decisions and their sources, a five-year watchlist with balances, rates, lock-in dates, lease and sale dates filled in where known, a sale estimate at two prices, a review date in your calendar, and three figures to recheck before acting.
Farah and Hakim's three were the market rate for a comparable package, the current HDB loan rate, and the CPF principal and accrued interest on their flat. Rates, rules and your own circumstances will all change in five years, and the plan is only as good as its last review. In the activity below, write your home plan and watchlist, put the review date in your calendar, and list your three figures.
Write your home plan and watchlist, put the review date in your calendar, and list the three figures you will look up again before acting.
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