Tuesday, June 13, 2006

[RealEdge] The New Paper : I want a home, not just a place to live in

ELECTRIC COLUMNISTS
I want a home, not just a place to live in
By Gloria Chandy
June 10, 2006    

I'M not a home owner. I rent.

Click to see larger image

I'd like to buy an apartment, but the thought scares me.

That's because I would like to buy a home in my own country, not a mere house. A place where I can hang up my hat and call my own - and never feel that the rug is going to be pulled from under me one day.

That I'll be told I don't belong to the majority of co-owners of my apartment block who have been dazzled by the almighty dollar and are willing to let their hearths and homes and memories go in the name of an en-bloc sale.

Of course, you never say never.

I'd be sad to have to part with the place I have in France, where I brought my daughter home from the hospital when she was a few days old.

It is filled with memories - happy and unhappy. But even unhappy memories are part of your life and are not to be relinquished that easily.

I would like the little home I buy here to be one that endures for some time too.

But I'm rattled. En-bloc fever is back, although it was temporarily quelled in the wake of the Sars fallout.

From what you read, it's a fever with peculiar symptoms.

It makes happy people of its victims. You hear rollicking laughter all the way to the bank from the happy majority who have sold their one-time dream homes for a large profit.

The age of these developments that are going to be refurbished - or more likely levelled by a wrecking ball - is amazing.

Old buildings with little or no architectural value, I can understand. Houses with sparse modern amenities, okay. It might mean accommodation, although the sentiment factor might still weigh heavily on the mover.

But beautiful apartment blocks that have hardly been around for a couple of decades flattened by the developer's bulldozer?

I read about this and despair. And doesn't this render the terms '99-year lease' (which most properties come with) or even '999-year lease' meaningless?

The latest shocker for me is Nassim Park, a development that is a mere 14 years old. I'd be devastated if I were a resident there and had to cave in to the almost 80 per cent who are poised to back a collective sale there.

It's hard to say no to big bucks - no matter how rich you already are.

But what about waste? And what about that silent minority who are drowned out by the euphoria of those who only care to hear the sound of cash tumbling into coffers so that their reasons for wanting to hang on to their homes are never considered?

This might be a good way to downgrade for people whose homes are their only asset. But this isn't the case for everybody, surely? There have been precious few stories in the press about the heartache of those who want to hang on to their homes for whatever reasons.

Most of the reports quote happy sellers breathlessly talking about how much they are raking in.

What does this say for values - and I don't mean the kind you can add up in your bank statement?

Is well-being, the comfort of knowing that you've saved hard, bought your own place and can live secure in the knowlege that you will have the home you have chosen till your dying day not important?

Uprooting is always a painful exercise. Those who do it voluntarily may not feel the pain, but those who are forced to swim with the tide could end up exhausted and unhappy, washed up on some beach they don't particularly want to be on.

It's a home I hope to buy. Not a mere house.

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