Lin Peifen Bought This $1.4M Condo In The Northeast To Get Her Son Into The Primary School Of Her Choice
Like many Singaporean parents, YES 933 DJ Lin Peifen and her husband, a computer engineer, decided to move house so that their son Luke would have a better chance of entering the primary school of their choice.
The couple, both 40, used to live in the west. Last year, they bought a condo for “less than $1.4million” in the northeastern part of Singapore, just so they could be within one kilometre of the chosen school. The strategy paid off. And now that Luke, 7, is in the school, Peifen will not face a problem enrolling her younger son, 21-month-old Jude, there four years later.
As Peifen was from a girls’ school and her husband’s primary school is no longer around, she could not enrol Luke into their alma maters, so she picked a school “based on feeling”.
“I am Catholic, so I started searching for Catholic schools. I like this school as there seems to be a Chinese culture, which is important to me,” she tells 8days.sg. “Then I used the OneMap app to find condos within 1km radius of the school and started going for viewings.”
Peifen was already drawn to the 29-year-old apartment when she first viewed it in 2020. The 1,500 sq ft three-bedroom, three-bathroom unit is bright and spacious with a rectangular layout.
Her only complaint is that it’s on the fourth storey of the walk-up apartment. “My husband kept saying, ‘There’s no lift. When you go on trips, you have to carry your luggage [up flights of stairs].’ Then I was like ‘Okay, let’s think about it’,” she laughs.
They ended up sitting on it for six months, buying the apartment last May, “just in time” for the school registration in July.
While Peifen admits that she is “quite kiasu” for “going on a limb” to buy the condo to get her son into the school, she is considered “last minute” compared to many parents.
“Do you know that people who plan to move start looking for homes when their kids are three or four years old? I only started when Luke was five, when I had to start considering his primary one registration. And in the end, we still didn’t buy this place straightaway ‘cos we weren’t sure,” she says.
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