Thursday, December 10, 2009

Use Google Maps to rent a most conveniently located Apartment in Singapore!

Well I got this idea recently when trying to explore Google Street View for Singapore. Many readers ask me this question regarding "How to go about renting flat in Singapore?". I believe the most important question for the new comer in this country is to find good apartment for rent which offers best convenience. As you start living in Singapore, you will understand that living with good convenience is the best thing happened to you. Although all over Singapore you will find all necessities of life close to you. Thanks to excellent infrastructure. Still at a times you are pressed for time and you want to commute faster on a daily basis to your office or do not want to put off the idea to go to a park/mall on a weekend just because the MRT/Bus Interchange itself is 20 mins away :).

You got it right!, I am talking about renting an apartment near MRT/Bus Interchange. It makes a huge different when you have an option to MRT which is 10 minutes away or must wait for the bus to take you there!.

So how Google Maps is going to help you here. The instructions are here :

1. Suppose I decide to rent my apartment in Hougang Area.
2. The area is spanning 5 sq kms. So where do you rent the apartment so that you are just 10 minutes walk away.
3. Goto Google Maps. Search for "Hougang MRT, Singapore"
4. Once you zoom in a bit you will see "NE14 Hougang".
5. Ok you know the MRT, now how do you decide how far I should go from this central point in the map to make sure I am not too far from MRT that I need to take a bus to go there or walk for long time!.
6. Make the NE14 Hougang as your center of the map and zoom in so much that you read : 200 ft / 100 m on the scale shown on the down left of the Google Maps.
7. Now this is the area on the map should become a guide to you for renting your apartment in Hougang. So by taking this example itself, I can either look for apartments in Hougang Ave 10 seen on this map or Hougang Ave 7 seen in this map.

Again this just a guideline. Once you see the area you need to consider other factors like the nearest bus stop, super markets like Cold Storage/NTUC FairPrice etc etc. This is where Google Street View comes to rescue and you can take the advantage of that to become familiar with the areas surrounding your preferred location!

In most cases the MRT stations and Bus Interchange will have a Super Market, Shopping Mall and other facilities like Medical Clinics to serve you!.

I hope this helps !

cheers
Sandeep




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