https://www.secondpropertyinvestors.com/

Second Property Investors, 480 Lorong 6 Toa Payoh, Singapore (2026)

10/06/2026

Some buyers are very hard to convince.

And actually, that may not be a bad thing.

Recently, there was a buyer who questioned almost every part of the buying process.

▪️ Why this development?
▪️ Why this unit?
▪️ Why this facing?
▪️ Why this price?
▪️ Why pay more for pool view?
▪️ Why not take the cheaper unit?
▪️ Why will tenants rent this place?
▪️ Why will future buyers still want this unit next time?

At first glance, this kind of buyer can feel like a tough nut to crack.

But the more I think about it, the more I feel this is exactly how a serious property buyer should behave.

📍 Because property is not a small purchase.

It is not something where we can just say,

“Good location.”
“Nice view.”
“Good potential.”
“Many people like.”

And expect the buyer to accept.

Every reason must be able to stand.

✔️ If the unit is better, why is it better?

✔️ If the price is fair, fair compared to what?

✔️ If the view is better, can the extra premium be recovered in future?

✔️ If the cheaper unit is available, are we really saving money, or are we buying something harder to exit next time?

✔️ If the development is not beside MRT, who is the future buyer or tenant?

✔️ If the seller is firm, is it because the seller is unrealistic, or because the number of competing sellers is already getting lower?

This is where the real work in property buying starts.
Not in viewing more and more houses.

But in helping the buyer separate preference from protection.

Because sometimes a buyer likes a unit.

But liking the unit is not enough.

The deeper question is:
👉 Will the next buyer also like it?

Sometimes a buyer wants to save $20,000 to $30,000.

That is very normal.

But the deeper question is:
👉 Are we saving money, or are we giving up something that makes the unit easier to sell next time?

Sometimes a buyer feels uncomfortable paying near a new high.

This is also very normal.

But the deeper question is:
👉 Is this new high created by one emotional buyer, or is the market slowly confirming a new price level?

That is why some property decisions cannot be rushed.

🔹 The development must be tested.
🔹 The price must be tested.
🔹 The seller motivation must be tested.
🔹 The competing units must be tested.
🔹 The rental demand must be tested.
🔹 The future exit buyer must be tested.
🔹 The small price gap between units must also be tested.

Only after all these questions are asked, then the decision becomes clearer.

And this is also why property buying is not just about opening doors and viewing more units.

Because the real value is not in finding a unit that looks nice.

The real value is in helping the buyer test whether the unit still makes sense after all the doubts come in.

Sometimes, the buyer may not even know what questions to ask yet.

Sometimes, the buyer may be focusing on saving $20,000 today, without realising that the harder-to-sell unit may cost more in future.

Sometimes, the buyer may be uncomfortable paying a premium, without knowing whether that premium is actually buying better protection.

This is where experience matters.

Not to push the buyer.

But to help the buyer see what they may not be able to see yet.

Because in property, the dangerous part is not buying slowly.

The dangerous part is buying with incomplete thinking.

☝🏻 A careful buyer is not necessarily a difficult buyer.

☝🏻 A careful buyer is someone who forces the logic to become sharper.

☝🏻 Because if the recommendation is weak, their questions will expose it.

☝🏻 But if the recommendation is strong, their questions will slowly make them more convinced.

That is why the best property decisions are not made when the buyer is excited.

They are made when the buyer has doubted enough, compared enough, questioned enough, and the logic still makes sense.

In property, we are not trying to find a unit that looks good today.

We are trying to find a unit where after all the “what ifs”...
the decision still stands.

09/06/2026

A recent rental discussion reminded me of something interesting.

The landlord was considering two tenant profiles.

Option 1:
A family with young children and a helper.

Option 2:
Seven engineers renting together.

Which one would you choose?

Most people immediately focus on the rent.

Who is offering more?

How much more?

Can we negotiate another $100 or $200?

But I felt the more important discussion was elsewhere.

Let’s say one option offers an additional $200 per month.

Over a 2-year lease, that’s about $4,800.

At first glance, $4,800 sounds like quite a lot.

But compared to a property worth over a million dollars, is it really that significant?

Interesting right?

🔺 The visible gain is easy to calculate.
🔺 The hidden cost is much harder to see.

The family also came with a helper.

Which means someone is usually at home.

Someone is cleaning regularly.

Someone notices maintenance issues early.

Someone is taking care of the day-to-day condition of the home.

Now compare that to a shared accommodation setup.

🔺 With 7 occupants, the common areas tend to see much heavier usage.

🔺 The living room, dining area, kitchen, toilets and walkways are being used by multiple people every single day.

But the bigger question is this:

▪️ Who is responsible for the common area?
▪️ When something is dirty, whose job is it to clean?
▪️ When something breaks, who takes ownership?

The challenge is not that they are bad tenants.

The challenge is that responsibility becomes shared.

And when responsibility becomes shared, it sometimes becomes nobody’s responsibility.

Now compare that against what happens when the tenancy ends.

📍 A damaged floor.
📍 A damaged cabinet.
📍 Extra cleaning.
📍 Extra repairs.
📍 A few weeks of delay before the next tenant can move in.

Or simply a property that looks much more worn out after two years.

Suddenly the conversation looks very different.

The discussion is no longer about an extra $200 a month.

The discussion becomes whether that extra $4,800 over two years is worth the additional risk.

Interesting right?

Most people focus on the visible gain.

👉 The higher rent.
👉 The better yield.
👉 The extra few hundred dollars.

But the visible gain is usually the easiest thing to see.

The hidden cost is often where the real decision lies.

And this doesn’t just apply to renting.

Two properties may look similar.

One may appear cheaper.
One may appear to generate a better return.

But beneath the surface, the real question is often:
“What hidden cost am I taking on in exchange for this visible benefit?”

The funny thing is this.

The visible gain is usually obvious.
The hidden cost is where most of the mistakes happen.
And perhaps that is why experience becomes valuable.

💡 Not because experienced people know more information.

💡 But because they have learnt where to look when everyone else is looking somewhere else.

💡 My role is not to decide for the landlord.

💡 My role is simply to help him see both the visible gain and the hidden cost before making the decision himself.

And perhaps that is what good advice really is.

Not telling people what to do.

But helping them see what they may not have noticed before.

08/06/2026

One thing I've realised over the years.

There is a rule to almost everything.

The challenge is not whether the rule exists.

The challenge is whether we can see it.

Many people think successful people are simply smarter, work harder, or are luckier.

But very often, they are just better at understanding the rules of the game they are playing.

Take property for example.

Many people look at a policy announcement and focus only on the policy itself.

But I have always been more interested in a different question:

Where is the demand being shifted to?

Because policy is rarely just a set of rules.

Policy is often a way of directing demand.

When Prime and Plus location HDBs were introduced, many people focused on the restrictions.

🔺10-year MOP.
🔺Income ceilings.
🔺Restrictions on who can buy.
🔺Restrictions on renting out the whole unit.

But another way to look at it is this.

If future Prime and Plus flats come with all these restrictions, what happens to the existing flats nearby that do not have these restrictions?

Could they become more attractive because future competitors are no longer competing on equal terms?

The rule changed.
Demand shifted.

The opportunity may not be where most people are looking.

The same thing happened with the recent EC policy changes.

Second-timers are no longer allowed to buy ECs during the initial launch.

But does that mean these buyers disappear?

Of course not.

📍 They still earn the same income.
📍 They still build the same savings.
📍 They still have the same desire to upgrade.

The only difference is that policy has redirected where they can go.

And when demand is redirected, opportunities often appear somewhere else.

⭐️ This is why I believe investing is less about predicting the future.

⭐️ And more about understanding the rules that shape human behaviour.

Because once you understand the rules, you stop chasing demand.

You position yourself where demand is likely to arrive.

Interestingly, I don't think this only applies to property.

It applies to business.
It applies to sales.
It applies to life.

There is a rule to almost everything.

The people who understand the rule early often look lucky.

The people who don't usually think the outcome came out of nowhere.

But most of the time, the pattern was already there.

❓ The question is:
What demand is being redirected today that most people have not noticed yet?

07/06/2026

I was showing a unit recently.

The owner had hacked one of the bedrooms and combined it with the master bedroom.

The result?

✔️A huge master suite.
✔️A proper walk-in wardrobe.
✔️A work-from-home space.

The wife loved it.

The husband immediately said:
"But I prefer to have 3 proper bedrooms."

Fair question.

So I asked him:

"Do you actually need 3 bedrooms today?"

The answer was no.
No children yet.
Just the two of them.

Then I shared something that I have noticed after selling many homes over the years.

Most people don't buy based on what they need 10 years later.

They buy based on the lifestyle they want today.

And for many young couples, one of the bedrooms eventually becomes:

▪️ An empty room.
▪️ A storeroom.
▪️ An ironing room.
▪️ A bicycle room.
▪️ Or simply a room nobody uses.

So why sacrifice a huge master bedroom, a walk-in wardrobe and a proper work-from-home space just to keep an empty room?

The interesting thing is this.

Many agents will look at this unit and immediately tell the owner:

"Your room count is reduced. You need to sell cheaper."

But is that really true?

Cheaper for who?

A family with 3 children?
Maybe.

A young couple with no children?
Maybe not.

And this is something I realised many years ago.

☝🏻 Property value is not determined by the property alone.

☝🏻 Property value is determined by who is looking at it.

The challenge is that many sellers focus on the house.

But experienced agents spend more time understanding the buyer.

Because when you understand the buyer, you know how to position the house.

The same feature that one buyer sees as a weakness can become the exact reason another buyer falls in love with it.

This is why some owners end up selling below market value.

Not because their property is bad.

But because nobody helped them identify who their ideal buyer really is.

In fact, some of the hacked-room units I have sold over the years were sold at very good prices.

Not because the room magically came back.

Not because the owner spent more money renovating.

⭐️ But because the right story was told to the right buyer.

Sometimes selling a property is not about finding more buyers.

Sometimes it is about understanding which buyer will value it the most.

And those are two very different skills.

06/06/2026

If your property is a little more complicated than the average development to navigate from point to point, this is one thing you should seriously consider doing.

Create a simple walkthrough video for your buyers before they come for viewing.

Why?

Because I have seen buyers reject a development not because the unit was no good.

But because their first experience with the development was unpleasant.

🔺 They couldn't find the right entrance.
🔺 They parked at the wrong place.
🔺 They took the wrong lift.
🔺 They got lost moving from one point to another.

And before they even stepped into the unit, they already had a negative impression of the development.

The funny thing is this.

The unit itself may actually be fantastic.

But the viewing experience has already started on the wrong foot.

This is something I always try to help sellers avoid.

That's why for this particular property...

I created a simple step-by-step walkthrough video to show buyers exactly where to enter, where to park, which staircase to take, which lift lobby to use, and how to reach the unit as seamlessly as possible.

Some people may think this is a small thing.

But after selling properties for many years, one thing becomes very obvious.

🟢 Buyers don't only evaluate the unit.

🟢 They evaluate the entire experience.

🟢 From the moment they leave their house.

✅ The journey there.
✅ The parking.
✅ The common areas.
✅ The lift ride.
✅ The first impression.

Everything matters.

Most people think property marketing is about creating attraction.

But many times, it is actually about removing resistance.

And sometimes, the difference between an average result and an exceptional result is not one big thing.

It is 20 small things done properly.

So if you're a seller, and your development is a little more complicated than average, this is something worth paying attention to.

A buyer's impression starts long before they enter your front door.

And sometimes, a small adjustment like this can make the entire viewing experience feel very different.

And if you're a buyer, the next time you come across something like this, pay attention as well.

Because what you are seeing may only be one small thing.

🔸 The walkthrough video.
🔸 The viewing route.
🔸 The seamless experience.

But behind that one thing, there are often another hundred things happening behind the scenes that you never get to see.

🔸The touch-ups.
🔸The preparation.
🔸The positioning.
🔸The buyer management.
🔸The anticipation of potential objections before they even happen.

Most of the work that goes into achieving a good result is usually invisible.

You only notice the final experience.

And when the final experience feels effortless...

It is often because someone has spent a lot of effort making it look that way.

05/06/2026

I brought my daughter to the bookstore recently.

She is currently obsessed with anything related to space.

Astronauts.
Rockets.
Planets.

So when she saw this space book, she immediately wanted it.

At first, I thought it was because of the topic.

But after observing her for a while, I realised something interesting.

What attracted her wasn’t really the information inside the book.

It was the cardboard torch that came with it.

The book has special pages where you can shine the cardboard torch through them and discover hidden things.

For almost 20 minutes, she kept going back to the same book.

Shining the torch.
Looking for hidden objects.
Trying to figure out what else was inside.

In the end, we didn’t buy the book.

We decided to check if the National Library has it instead 😅

But watching her play with it made me realise something.

Most people think value comes from information.

☝🏻 Actually, value often comes from seeing something that others cannot see.

The facts about space were already inside the book.

Every customer in the bookstore had access to exactly the same information.

But without the cardboard torch, many of the hidden details remained hidden.

And I feel property is becoming a little bit like that today.

Almost everyone has access to information now.

PropertyGuru.
URA data.
99.co
YouTube.
AI.

Information is no longer the problem.

If information alone was enough, everyone would already be making great property decisions.

🔺 The real challenge is interpretation.

⭐️ Because two people can look at the exact same market and arrive at completely different conclusions.

🔴 One person sees risk.

🟢 Another person sees opportunity.

❗️ One person sees a policy announcement.

💡 Another person sees how that policy may affect demand and prices 5 to 10 years later.

The information is the same.

The lens is different.

And perhaps that is why some people make decisions earlier than others.

Not because they know more.

But because they see something earlier.

The funny thing about the cardboard torch was this.

The hidden pictures were already there.
The torch didn’t create them.

It simply revealed what was already there.

Maybe many opportunities in life work the same way.

The question is not whether the information exists.

The question is whether we know where to shine the light.

🤔🤔🤔

04/06/2026

AI helped me solve a problem this week.

But the interesting part wasn't the AI.

It was the problem that AI helped me spot.

Recently, I was preparing a unit for sale.

The owner was very cooperative.

We repainted the house.
We touched up the small details.
We packed away unnecessary items.

After everything was done, I went down to take the marketing photos.

When I looked at the photos, something felt strange.

📍 The house looked clean.
📍 The walls looked fresh.
📍 The built-ins still looked modern.

But somehow the house still felt older than it should.

I couldn't figure out why initially.

Then it hit me.

The flooring.

The flooring wasn't bad.

In fact, if you saw it before all the touch-ups, you probably wouldn't even notice it.

But once everything else became newer and fresher, the flooring suddenly became the oldest-looking thing in the house.

And it started pulling down the entire presentation.

So instead of guessing, I tried something.

The vinyl contractor sent over a few flooring samples.

I took the actual photos of the unit and used AI to superimpose the different flooring colours directly onto the house.

Within minutes, I could see the difference.

Not just whether the flooring looked nice.

But whether it matched the kitchen cabinets.

📍 Whether it matched the TV feature wall.
📍 Whether it made the entire house feel brighter.
📍 Whether it made the home feel more current to today's buyers.

And honestly, I was quite amazed.

The photos almost looked real.

What used to require imagination can now be visualised almost instantly.

But while playing with the different versions, one thought came to mind.

Most people think selling a house is about taking photos and putting it online.

What they don't see are the hundreds of small decisions behind the scenes.

📍 Should we repaint?
📍 Should we declutter?
📍 Should we repair this?
📍 Should we leave that alone?

Should we spend $3,000 here if it potentially makes the house feel $30,000 more attractive?

And now with AI...

We can even test ideas before spending the money.

The funny thing is this.

AI can generate the image.
AI can generate the options.

But AI doesn't know what buyers notice when they walk into a house.

AI doesn't know which improvements create value and which improvements are just wasting money.

AI doesn't know how to position a property against competing listings.

That's still a human decision.

Technology is becoming more powerful every day.

But sometimes the real value is not the tool.

It's knowing where to point the tool.

And in property, that small difference can sometimes create a very different result.

03/06/2026

Not too many years ago, many people focused heavily on “investment-style” properties.

Meaning:
1-bedroom.
2-bedroom.
Small quantum units.

Why?

Because back then, many people still had the mindset of:

“Stay in HDB. Save money.
Buy second or third property to collect rental.”

So people didn’t mind staying in their existing HDB for very long.

The goal was not really to improve their own lifestyle.

The goal was:
accumulate investment properties.

But once the market started shifting because of policies like ABSD and TDSR - many people didn’t adapt fast enough.

And some eventually got stuck quite badly.

Because their thinking was still based on the old market environment.

And because of that behaviour - smaller “investment-style” properties became very popular.

While larger, more “consumable” properties were actually less favoured.

When I asked people to buy a bigger unit a few years ago,
the response was usually:

“Gary, this one for investment leh.
Why buy 4-bedroom?
Will people rent from me anot?”

At that point in time - most people judged property mainly based on rental efficiency.

Smaller unit.
Lower quantum.
Easier to rent.
Higher rental yield.

That was the dominant thinking.

And because developers also knew buyers preferred smaller investment-style units - they sometimes had no choice but to lower the $psf pricing for bigger units to attract demand.

Which quietly created very interesting value in the larger units.

But one thing I kept thinking about back then was this:

Would ABSD eventually reshape buyer behaviour completely?

Because once buying second and third properties became much - harder, more expensive, and heavily taxed due to ABSD…

Would people still continue using their money the same way?

Or would they eventually start upgrading their own lifestyle instead?

And slowly - that was exactly what started happening.

Instead of buying another small investment property,
many families started using their money to improve their own stay.

Better layout.
More space.
Better environment.
Better daily living.

Then Covid accelerated everything even further.

Suddenly - people realised how important the home actually was.

And that was when demand for “consumable” properties started becoming much stronger.

Not because the property changed.

But because human behaviour changed.

But now, something else is happening again.

Developers already know this trend.

So increasingly - more pricing and profit are now being loaded into larger “consumable” units because developers know demand is there.

Which also means…

Just because a certain concept worked in the past...

It doesn’t automatically mean buying the same thing today will still produce the same result.

Because markets evolve.
Policies evolve.
Human behaviour evolves.

And if our thinking doesn’t evolve together with it - sometimes we may unknowingly use yesterday’s logic to buy tomorrow’s problem.

02/06/2026

A few weeks ago, the government announced major changes to the EC market.

The headlines focused on things like:

• 90% quota for first-timers
• Longer 10-year MOP
• Deferred Payment Scheme removed

And naturally, many people started discussing whether ECs are becoming harder to buy.

But when I was reading the policy, I found myself focusing on a different question.

If second-timers can no longer compete for as many EC units as before...

Where will all these buyers go?

Interesting right?

When most people read a policy, they focus on what changed.

I tend to focus on where the demand is likely to go after the change.

Let's think about it.

These second-timers don't suddenly disappear.

They still need a place to stay.

They still want to upgrade.

Many of them still have substantial proceeds from their existing HDB.

The demand doesn't disappear.

It simply gets redirected.

And this is where things become interesting.

If demand is redirected away from ECs, where does it go?

📍 Does it flow towards larger resale HDBs?
📍 Does it flow towards resale condominiums?
📍 Does it flow towards selected new launches?

📍 Or does it flow towards older private properties that suddenly become relatively more attractive?

Most people spend their time asking:

"Can I still buy an EC?"

A different question might be:

"If fewer people can buy an EC in the future, where will all that demand go instead?"

Because very often, property opportunities are not created when demand appears.

They are created when demand gets redirected.

The same way Prime and Plus flats redirected demand.

The same way the 15-month wait-out rule redirected demand.

The same way ABSD redirected demand.

Policy is rarely just about restriction.

Policy is often about demand control.

And sometimes the biggest opportunities are found in the places where demand eventually lands.

That's why whenever a new policy is announced, the first question I ask is not:

"Who is affected?"

The first question I ask is:
"Where will the demand go now?"

Because once we understand how demand is being redirected...

We can start positioning ourselves in those areas before the demand arrives.

And very often, that is where the biggest opportunities are found.

01/06/2026

Some people buy property and make money.

Some people buy property and don’t.

But recently, there’s one question that keeps coming to mind.

When someone made money from property over the last few years…

Was it really skill?

Or was it simply because the market moved in their favour?

Because if we are truly honest with ourselves,
a lot of times this is what happens.

We use a certain way of thinking.
A certain way of choosing property.
A certain way of making decisions.

Then a few years later, the property goes up.

And naturally we assume:

“Means my thinking was correct.”

But was it really?

Or did the market simply reward almost everyone during that period?

This part is very important.

Because if our thinking never evolved…
our decision-making process never improved…
our understanding never deepened…

Then technically our “ability” never really changed.

Only the market changed.

And if the market changes again,
while our thinking remains the same,
the outcome can become very different.

That’s why one of the most dangerous things in investing is when people accidentally treat luck as skill.

Because once luck disappears, they suddenly realise they were never actually seeing deeper than the crowd.

To me, good investing is not about repeating what worked before.

It’s about constantly asking:

“Is the market still rewarding the same behaviour today?”

Because markets evolve.

Policies evolve.
Human behaviour evolves.

And if our thinking stays the same for 5 years…

Why should we expect the results to suddenly become different?

Second Property Investors

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