Singapore living

Growing up in Owosso my concept of a home was a typical single-family house with a garage and a yard.  There weren't very many apartment complexes and certainly no high rise buildings.  I'm sure that people who are from more urban areas would have a different frame of reference.

In Singapore, there are not a lot of single-family homes.  Those that do exist are insanely expensive to rent or purchase (think millions of dollars).  Obviously, when you have 5 million plus people living on an island you very quickly run out of room so the easiest thing to do is build up instead of out. 

These are HDB (Housing Development Board) apartment blocks.  They are built by the Singapore government and are lower cost than the privately held apartment buildings.  Typically, locals will live in HDB apartments but there is nothing that prohibits expats from living in them...although I'm pretty sure we couldn't own one. 

The newer buildings where most of the expats live look more modern and tend to be newer...

I actually looked at a place in this complex...

The thing that is a bit different than being in the US is that all of the units are privately owned.  When you you want to rent one you actually have to have a leasing agent that contacts the landlord's leasing agent to schedule viewings and then negotiate the leases.  I am not aware of any typical apartment buildings like we have in the US where they manage all of the units in the building.  It all seems very inefficient by having so many people involved.

I have enjoyed city living and think that I have adapted well to being in an apartment building again.  However, I'm looking forward to being back in a home that I own...with no neighbors above me or just on the other side of the walls...it will be nice to have a yard again...and to be able walk directly from the garage into the house without having to take an elevator...

BTW - if you check out the pictures of the HDB buildings above you'll notice poles with laundry hanging out to dry.  Most of the private buildings don't allow you to do this so is one way to tell (and am generalizing here) if a building is HDB or not.