Dear Readers,
Thank you for coming here!
I discussed in this blog why location is important for property and why it might not be so important any more given the new circumstances.
It seems that I am not the only one to think that.
Below LianHeZaoBao articles gives more reasoning and details.
Till next time!
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| Photo by R ARCHITECTURE on Unsplash |
Dear Readers,
Thank you for coming here!
About 8 years ago, when we were trying to buy our first ever property, the agent told us that location was key.
I did not believe him.
The only meaning location carried for us then was the duration of commute to work. And we were prepared to be very very tolerate on that.
We were literally just looking for an affordable property. (Imagine a young couple all by themselves who were drawing entry level salaries and just accumulated enough for a down payment from saving every possible penny)
How the value of property might change was beyond our consideration. Hell, we did not even think about selling the property ever.
7 years later, when we lost more than 100K over the property we picked, I realized he was right.
So much so that I came out with my own reasoning why that was the case. And I wrote a post in this very blog, illustrating my logic from the perspective of “Public Wealth”. (I am sure I am not the one who first came out with this idea. Probably this is discussed in depth in Economics class or Politics class. But I did get that idea without any reference.)
But under Covid and all the “on-line” businesses supported by “Big Data”, how much of that value will still retain in the years to come, especially for Singapore, a small city state?
Let’s break down the value associated to location for a more detailed analysis.
What matters to me are listed below in the order of most important to least important. You can tell how “low” I am. Hahaha…
Do let me know in the comments what I am missing. We can make this as interactive as possible.
Let’s go through them one by one.
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| Photo by Matt Popovich on Unsplash |
Safety is definitely the most important for me in picking the location.
However, it is almost irrelevant in Singapore, thanks to the government.
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| Photo by Rendy Novantino on Unsplash |
With Covid here to stay, I have been staying at home (with job or no) for the past two years.
Even when Covid is gone, WFH is still going to be very very relevant.
Amazon has allowed their employees to WFH for ever.
My current company has allowed employees to WFH for 50% of the time even after Covid.
So the value of location on this aspect will be significant reduced.
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| Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash |
I think a reasonably good school is absolutely a must for kids.
Top school is more a matter of luck, with 1–5 or 1-7 balloting chances for residents within 1km. Location only gives you that chance.
We chickened out in front of the odds and chose the next best option for our son.
And a reasonable good school is so much more common.
And the Government has been saying all schools are the same and I believe they are taking actions to make it so.
With e-commerce developing at such a fast pace, Covid or no Covid, online shopping will become more and more popular.
And the delivery will become faster and faster.
In turn, more and more types of products can be included in e-commerce platform, such as fresh goods, to satisfy more and more of consumers’ needs.
A self-reinforcing flywheel.
What’s more, the “big data” will add so much efficiency to that.
The e-commerce may not know what you will order at any moment.
But they will know roughly how many people in your area will order how many of what products at that moment.
And they can allocate their resources accordingly.
In China, consumers are already getting their orders delivered in a few minutes in some cases.
It will only get sooner.
It is the same with services, such as healthcare.
The digital doctors will be capable of faster and more accurate diagnostic and treatment, as more and more data becomes available and analyzed for the population.
How much do you still need physical shopping malls and hospitals?
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| Photo by Nina Strehl on Unsplash |
Pretty much irrelevant if you stay in HDBs.
HDBs are meant for all residences in the first place.
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| Photo by Beatrice Selly on Unsplash |
I find myself missing the big parks and play grounds near my previous flat.
Usually newly developed towns have better plans for this and most of them are not in the central area.
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| Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash |
So how much of the value of location will still retain in the years to come, especially for Singapore, a small city state?
From what I heard, second-tier cities in China are offering better quality of life, with less expense property prices and slower pace of life and work.
And new “Cultural trend” is emerging from second-tier cities, like popular bands.
So this might be a sign that the location is losing its appeal.
What do you think?
Till next time!
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| From Internet |
Dear Readers,
Thank you for coming here!
I published this post last week and only got 27 views for this post, which is extremely low. I think the bad title "Another Gaming Episode" ruined everything.
When I started writing this post, I really just wanted to share my first ever experience to finish "Credits" of a game and the observation on the very high development cost vs the very low retail price.
And then scale came in and then decreasing world population and the corresponding risks to retirement.
While population posts risks to all fronts, from as big as who rule the future world to what happens to our property value to as little as what happens to retail prices for games, I think the risk to retirement is probably the most relevant for us commoners.
Unlike the ruling of the world or the worthless properties or the expensive games, quality of our retirement is probably the one thing that we would care most in our last stage of life.
I think it is important that people like you and me are aware of the risk to retirement planning posted by decreasing population, even though we may not be able to really do anything here and now.
Since only 27 people viewed it, I would like to repost it with a more "scary" title and some minor adjustment to the content, just to broadcast the awareness.
I completed the game "Cyberpunk"! Yay!
Well, only the main storyline and only reached one of the endings…There are still tons of side quests left, even though I have completed so many.
I did not count, but I must have thrown in more than 100 hours easily.
Such a good way to kill time!
Overall, it is a great game and CDPR is still releasing patches and DLCs to make it better.
Better here really means closer to what they had promised before the release.
I probably wont play the 1.3 patch any time soon. I will try something different for now.
Maybe when patch 1.7 is out, I will replay it as a female character with a female voice.
Apparently, that affects the gameplay significantly.
I tried so hard to romance Judy…
As a man, the game forbids me to do it…
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| From Internet |
One thing I would like to share with you here is that this is my first time ever to have watched the complete Credits of a game after completing it.
As far as I can recall, the last time I watched the Credits of a game was when I completed Call of Duty 2 for the first time.
There was an animation immediately after the game was completed, to draw players’ attention.
It was easy for players to just watch it. It was fun also.
But once I saw the “text” coming out, I immediately pressed “ESC”.
Cyberpunk was different.
It shows the “text” and on the side, a small window appears that plays the video messages your friends in Night City send to you.
I have to say I felt quite personal and “warm”.
And it flows extremely well with the storyline, where, in my ending, the player leaves Night City and lives “freely” for whatever time he has left.
That was more than enough to draw me in.
But the messages only last a short while, after which the Credits go on for a much longer duration.
And a “Fast Forward” option is provided.
Such a nice touch!
I understand the names etc mean a lot to the developers, but for players to spend like half an hour to go through it would be hard.
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| From Internet |
As I went down the list, the first thing I noticed was that so many people were involved in making the game.
The efforts and costs put in developing this still buggy game must be tremendous.
A quick google search showed USD 313 Million development cost for the game and that was until end of 2020. They have released a few patches in 2021 too. So the cost can only be significantly higher.
And the game retails for ~SGD 50. You can get cheaper on Lazada.
Such an affordable price is only possible due to scale and almost zero marginal cost.
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| From Internet |
Scale is key and that means user base, which is a fraction of world population.
And apparently, decreasing birth rate is a big problem now.
It has been a big problem in most developed countries, Singapore included.
It is now also a big problem for developing countries, like China.
China has been worrying about the opposite for so many years with the “Birth Control” policy. The fine put my family in debt for most of my childhood.
Now they are completely turning the tide. Making babies for Money is a real possibility.
And the cities in China are “fighting” for the young generation, by rolling out all sorts of policies, from houses to “Hukou” to subsidies.
It is not exaggerating to say that the power of a nation or a city ultimately resides in its population.
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| From Internet |
And declining and aging population could give rise to many problems.
Retail costs for games would be a relatively minor one.
Just imagine when we are all old, there is only a very limited supply of care-taking workers because there are a very limited number of people young enough to perform those duties.
The services will become so expensive that majority of old people wont be able to afford it.
It is possible to have no one taking care of us, no medication, no counseling, no peace of mind, even no food.
And any of our existing plans for retirement, the money we save, the property we keep, the insurance we buy, could prove a joke, in front of a miserable retirement.
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| From Internet |
Woooo….
Not sure how a gaming episode turns into the hopeless reflection of retirement lives…
But there is no need to feel so pessimistic.
I believe problems will solve themselves.
Maybe we will detach from our bodies and live in cyber space.
That way, we are forever young.
See you outside of the Black Wall.
Till next time!
