James’ friend Zhiwei, hopes he can support his wife’s property career. James idea of support however, goes beyond just buying a property.

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*This title will come with a teasing hour tour video generated by AI*

Among my friends, i have a nickname. They call me the Enbloc King. Like i have some midas touch for picking properties that will undergo development. The truth however, it was just blind, dumb luck.

Not that i’m complaining.

I grew up with my parents in a 5 room flat at Farrer road. It’s a good location, very convenient and well connected by buses and all. So when i could afford to buy my own property, i want to buy somewhere near. Right opposite the HDB estate, was Farrer Court. It’s nice, big, near the market and amenities, it fits my bill and budget. I bought in end of 2005 from a couple who is retiring and heading back to Australia.

I took my time to plan, to design and renovate the place. Cost me 30k to do up my dream bachelor pad and guess what? A few months in, the en bloc craze started.

I voted ‘No’ of course but what the fuck. Most of the residents were in favor. Then my reno how? My new aircon, new cabling, new carpentry? Lan lan suck thumb.

On the surface i was making noise and all but when the cheque for 2.15million came, i shut up. Yes, take money, stuff it down anyone’s throat, likely it will shut them up.

Fine, i moved back to my parents place and spent some time trying to find another place. I settled for Normanton park , buying a 3 bedroom during the peak of the Lehman brother crisis.

Now i’m not going to spend money to renovate it right away just in case something like Farrer court happens so i waited. There was an existing tenancy, so i let the Japanese family continue staying there. Before i knew it, they were keen to renew the lease, i’m getting paid ok and on time. More than enough to cover the mortgage and make a few hundred every month. They vacated in 2015 and i was ready to move in. Again, i spent like 40k on renovation and fitouts only to receive word that it’s going to happen again.

It enbloc in 2017.

I was in an absolute blur then but again, stuff money down my throat, and i’m fine.

I decided the west is probably bad fengshui for me so i changed a district altogether.

I bought chuan park in 2020 when Covid hit. I remember signing papers wearing a mask and gloves. I unloaded a whole bottle of dettol spray on the keys and the door handles when i went in. I didn’t even bother to roll a pineapple.

Everything’s a mess in Covid, it’s hard to find contractors too but i manage to short list a few and i was looking at 3D renderings already when news of enbloc starts floating.

I literally went to the EOGM to bang table.

In the middle of Covid, people worry about mask, test kit, different variants, people still thinking about enbloc.

It didn’t matter what i thought.

Chuan Park enbloc in 2022.

I had to pay some stamp duties but those were negligible compared to the profits i made.

Friends were commenting that they will follow my next property purchase.

I find myself back in my old room, staying with my parents again in 2023.

Flushed with cash, i decided property was probably not my game, so i threw it all into the stock market, splitting them among the 3 local banks.

I realise i must have accumulated quite a bit of good karma in my previous life by the time it got to middle of 2025.

I sold half of the stocks and began hunting for a landed property. This time round, i’m extra careful. It must check all the boxes. Location must be good, quiet cul de sac, no crazy neighbours. I visited units and estate every weekend and during one of this visit, i bump into Gwen.

Gwen is Zhiwei’s wife, and they are very active on social media.

They’re the power couple actually among out group of friends. Zhiwei, driving his Mercedes SLK, flashing his latest MDRT award or dishing out life’s advice while posing with his car. Gwen, does the same, with blurred out copies of OTP signed at showflats, together, they generated a good among of hustle porn.

‘Believe in yourself, and you will achieve what you set out to achieve’

‘If you don’t try, you never know’

‘You miss 100% of the shots you don’t shoot’

Their daily hustle porn is like those good morning messages on flowery background old people like to send to group chats.

I still read them, why? Because Gwen is…pretty.

I’d always thought of Gwen as a kind of brand ambassador, a human product placement for the aspirational Singaporean lifestyle.

She was in her mid-thirties, but you wouldn’t know it unless you stalked the timelines far enough back to find a photo of her in her JC uniform.

She was so well-maintained,a face with no trace of fatigue, skin that gleamed with a post-facial dewiness even at hawker centres, and a naturally sharp jawline. Yes, if you and i were to sit at a hawker centre in Singapore’s heat for an hour, we will be sweaty fat ass with wet underarms, but not Gwen.

Not her. She still look like she stepped out of a spa.

She dressed for the algorithm, thirst-trap, bait-and-switch, Instagram’s native tongue. If she wasn’t arching her lumbar into impossible curves for a mirror selfie, she was “accidentally” catching an upskirt angle while doing squats at some influencer-branded gym.

Her wardrobe was a daily parade of high end athleisure, push-up bras engineered by perverts, and those tights that made half of Singapore’s men think “maybe I should start jogging.”

Whenever she was in a group shot, the framing always cut off the other faces and left only her midriff and cleavage,a constant reminder that you were never just following property advice, you were being seduced.

By her body.

In a straight line through the demographics, Gwen was the common denominator in the collective fantasy—young enough to arouse, mature enough to mother, always a few degrees more glamorous than any other wife in the acquaintance circle.

Zhiwei called her his “marketing collateral.”

Zhiwei himself was not shy about leveraging this. He’d model the Mercedes in carpark photos, Gwen would pose in front of the bonnet, and their matching captions would read like duets from a motivational MLM script.

“You can have it all,” a typical post would say, her legs long and lean against the hood.

To their audience, she was both everyman’s daydream and every woman’s benchmark. Even the old uncle on the void deck, who likely had no clue what Instagram was, would smirk and nudge his kopi buddies when she sashayed past.

I wondered how those uncles term ‘cocktease’ in Hokkien.

So it felt almost preordained, when I ran into her at a landed property viewing at Leedon Heights. I’d been trailing the agent up the flagstone path, mentally calculating renovation costs and nearby kopi tiam distances, when Gwen materialized from a Mercedes parked across the street. She wore a white tank top that seemed to have been engineered for maximum sideboob, and her hair was pulled into a ponytail so tight it looked surgically affixed. She waved, the kind of wave that made it clear she knew she was being watched, then glided over for a hug i wasn’t expecting.

Gwen : JAMES! HEY!

She came over, threw her arms open and squishes her C cup tits against my body.

The agent i contacted immediately had a black face when he realised i knew the seller’s other agent.

Gwen : aiyah…why never tell me you looking around. haha…give me a second i grab some documents.

I saw her exchange a look at the other agent, it was a look of challenge, of telling him he can back off, there’s no way he is getting this deal.

The poor young chap, probably looking forward to closing the deal had no choice but to back off for his ‘senior’.

Agent : ermm James ah…i suddenly have another appointment…Gwen will show you around…

James: oh…er…ok…

Gwen spent some time leaving through a stack of documents, then for reasons i can’t explain, she dropped the documents.

And i watched her bend down…real…slow…to pick them up.

I smiled.

I may not be getting another en-bloc for this property purchase, but i’m definitely getting something out of it.

coming soon