Review of Far East Organisation talk & show rooms 'Jardin' and 'Gardenvista' Part 2, with Citibank Home loan

Garden Vista is nice. The place has its own private lift. I.e the lift starts from the ground floor and the basement car park and goes straight up INTO your apartment. Yup, that's right, the lift opens into your home. Privacy is preserved as only by using your unique access card, can you access that particular level of the lift.

Amenities looks good, swimming pool, Teppanyaki station, gym etc. With its own tennis court ( something that Jardin does not have).


After that, I met up with the Citibank home loan specialist. This cash management account (CMA) with an interest off set feature is quite a good one, and I would recommend it to people who are trying to get a home loan.

Here are the rough details :

• Floating rate pegged to the either 1/3/6/12 mth SIBOR rate + X% ( where X is 0.85% for the first year, and 1% for subsequent years)
• Concurrently, Citibank lets you open this CMA that pays you 70% of the effective interest rate from your home loan on your money in this CMA. For example, if the SIBOR in the 2nd year is at 1%, In the 2nd year, your effective rate is 1% + X% (where X is 1%), hence your pay an interest rate of 2% to the bank. The CMA will let you earn 70% X 2%interest rate =1.4% on the $$ in your CMA.
• This interest earned, cannot be withdrawn. It is used to offset the monthly interest component on your monthly home loan, hence a higher percentage of your monthly installments is used to pay off your principle amount, leading to a shorter loan tenure.
• The maximum amount that you can put into this CMA is the same as the loan amount.
• This floating rate can be interchanged betwen 1,3,6 or 12 mths are any time of the loan duration. However it will only be free if the change is done at the Expiry date of each term. I.e if you take up a 3 months loan, you can only change your 'plan' after 3mths, 12mths loan means you have to wait for 12mth...etc.

The website of Citibank (click here) does not say much about this plan in detail, so I hope the above information is useful for all of you out there!