Old is Gold!

This British-Bangladeshi family – Fahima, Peter and two daughters Anoushka and Ariana – have been calling Singapore home for seven years. FAHIMA tells us what they enjoy about living in an older condominium and why they chose it over a landed property

Where are you from originally and when did you move to Singapore?

We moved from London to Singapore in 2016 with our daughters, who were two and three years old at the time. Like many expats we subsequently met, we originally came for a two-year stint – but here we are seven years later!

Where did you first live when you arrived? 

We’d been living in a flat in Central London and, because of our two young children, were about to move to a house in the suburbs when the opportunity to move to Singapore arose.

We originally thought of renting a house here. However, our relocation agent advised us to move to a large condo because we were new and didn’t know anyone. She appreciated that with two small children I would feel less isolated in a larger condo as it would enable me to meet other people.

That was one of the best pieces of advice we’ve received! Some of our closest friends in Singapore today are the ones we met during our time at that condo.

Our relocation agent was also very good in suggesting a preschool for our children, which was a perfect fit for what we’d been contemplating.

Our condo was in District 11, and our children’s school was less than a ten-minute walk, door-to-door, from our flat. We really enjoyed living in that part of Singapore. Our proximity to the Singapore Polo Club, Bukit Brown Cemetery, Mount Pleasant and MacRitchie Reservoir meant that we benefitted from vast green expanses and beautiful views from our 28th-floor flat.

We were very happy there; however, we needed to move after two years as our landlord was selling the flat. Our children were also moving schools and we found that the new school bus didn’t collect from our condo.