Wah!Banana Co-Founder & Her French Husband Paid S$1.87Mil For Condo After Considering S$1.4Mil HDB

Spend S$1.875mil on a condo and you'd probably want to be very sure about it.

For Wah!Banana co-founder Xiong Lingyi, 38, and her French husband Luka, getting there apparently involved a bidding war, an almost-S$200K renovation and plenty of passionate disagreements along the way.

The couple recently opened the doors to their roughly 1,250 sq ft, three-bedroom resale condo in Joo Chiat on Kaypoh Room Tours.

We say roughly 1,250 sq ft because even Lingyi and Luka couldn't quite agree on the number.

Luka said the condo was 1,250 sq ft. Lingyi immediately chimed in: "I'm not sure if we have 1,250 sq ft, but it's around there, it's a round number."

Honestly, watching these two correct each other in real time throughout the episode might be one of our favourite parts of the house tour.

Back to the home, where Lingyi revealed that they ended up paying S$75K above the S$1.8mil asking price.

"We don't know if the bidding war was real or not because you never know if there was actually another offer from somebody else. And then the seller could be taking a risk of telling you there was another offer. However, that would be unethical, I feel," she said.

Then came the renovation, which cost the couple "a bit less than S$200K" all-in, including appliances, though part of it was sponsored.

And that's despite the condo already being nicely renovated when they bought it.

"This house, before we bought it, was already in pretty good condition, and it was already very beautifully renovated. That's why we fell in love at first sight," she said.

Before buying their Joo Chiat home, Lingyi and Luka had been renting in River Valley, and a condo wasn't always the plan.

In fact, Lingyi says they had also considered an HDB flat that would have cost around S$1.4mil. It was slightly bigger than their eventual condo and also in a prime location.

Now, we'd very much like to know where this S$1.4mil HDB was too.

But according to Lingyi, the fact that Luka is a foreigner changed the financial equation.

"We actually were looking at both HDB and condo, but HDB would be quite tough because he's a foreigner, so I would be the only person who can finance it," she explained.

"The HDB that we wanted would have cost S$1.4 million, about the same size as here. And this place is S$1.8 something... and it's a condo! So it's like, the difference is okay, the HDB will be slightly bigger, prime location as well, but it's not that much cheaper, and I would have to finance that all by myself!" she explained.

Lingyi also says their current mortgage is actually slightly cheaper than what they'd previously been paying in rent at River Valley.

Of course, spending almost S$200K renovating a home together means making a lot of decisions together.

And, sometimes, discovering that your spouse has surprisingly strong opinions about doors.

Take their balcony door.

Luka wanted a folding door that could open completely and stack to one side, while Lingyi preferred a regular sliding door.

She admits Luka's choice looks beautiful. There's just one problem.

"It's quite a b**** to operate!" she said.

Unfortunately for Lingyi, Luka wasn't budging.

"You look at him, he seems like a nice guy, right? When he has a non-negotiable, he does not compromise. He'll just be like, 'I love you, but still, I think that's better.'" she joked

Luka won that battle in the end, though he later admitted the folding door is indeed a inconvenient to operate.

But any regrets? Absolutely not.

Asked if he would make the same choice again, Luka immediately replied: "Yes, full on!"

"He doesn't even know how to operate it! I'm just saying," Lingyi shot back.

The balcony door wasn't the only glimpse we got into their married life.

Luka apparently has a rather sweet habit of buying his wife flowers.

Specifically, yellow and white chrysanthemums.

For context, white and yellow chrysanthemums are commonly associated with funerals and mourning in Chinese culture.

Which makes what happened next even funnier.

Lingyi recalled Luka once putting an entire bouquet in front of a black-and-white photo of the couple.

"Tell me how I should feel about it!" she exclaimed.

While we think their home is gorgeous, there is one part of it Lingyi and Luka now wish they'd paid more attention to: the helper's room.

When Kaypoh Room Tours was filmed, Lingyi, who has since publicly shared that she and Luka are expecting their first child, was four months pregnant.

When host Amy Ang asked what they'd change if someone handed them another S$20K, Lingyi casually said, "I'm actually happy with everything, so I'll keep the cash!"

Luka immediately disagreed and said, "No, we redo the helper's room!"

Turns out, they hadn't done much with the space because they weren't expecting to need one so soon.

"We didn't think we would have a helper very soon, so we didn't do anything about it," Lingyi explained before revealing the happy news.