We Noticed

A real story. From my case files. Names changed to protect privacy.

I stood in an empty apartment holding someone else’s keys.

The owner wasn’t in Singapore. He had never seen this unit in person. Only photos I had sent him, layouts, pricing information, and a few emails back and forth. He had bought it before it was completed, from the other side of the world, and now it was done. The building had its TOP. And he had asked me to collect the keys and inspect for defects on his behalf.

I walked the rooms alone. Checked the fittings, the finishes, the things that needed to be flagged. Took notes. Took photos. Did the job.

Then I locked up and kept the keys.

For months, those keys sat in my keeping. A stranger’s keys. For a property I had sold to someone I had never met, never video-called, never sat across a table from.

Just a couple of phone calls. Some emails. Some WhatsApp messages.

And complete, unconditional trust.

# # #

Let me go back to where it started.

My phone rang one day.

Most people don’t pick up overseas numbers these days. But agents do. It could be business.

An American on the line. His name was Timothy.

Timothy had found me online and wanted help investing in a private property in Singapore. He explained what he was looking for. I listened carefully.

Before we went any further, I ran a background check. It came back clean.

I proceeded and came back with one recommendation. A condominium near completion that I felt suited his requirements. One option. Not a menu.

Timothy asked for more information by email. Unit types, layouts, pricing. I sent everything across. I also went to the site myself to take photos of the neighbourhood and the facade of the nearly completed building. He wasn’t here to see it. I could at least give him something real to look at.

Two weeks passed. A handful of emails. A couple of phone calls.

Then Timothy said he was ready to proceed.

I paused.

Two weeks. No face-to-face meeting. No video call. No Singaporean friend asked to check the property or vet the agent. Just emails and phone calls with a stranger on the other side of the world, and now he was ready to commit to a significant property purchase in a country he wasn’t standing in.

I had never sold a property this way before. I wasn’t sure anyone had.

We proceeded. The deal was done with minimal fuss.

# # #

After the construction of the property was completed, the keys stayed with me for six months, until Timothy and his wife finally came to Singapore.

We met at a Starbucks. First time seeing each other in person. No awkwardness, strangely. Just three people who had already built something together, finally occupying the same room.

We talked. I handed over the keys. And then I asked the question I had been sitting on for eighteen months.

They looked at each other. Then they looked at me.

They smiled. Calm. Certain. Like people who had already made peace with the answer long before I thought to ask.

That was it. Six words.

# # #

They had been Phd students at NTU two decades earlier. Singapore was not abstract to them. It was a place they had lived in and studied in. When they decided to invest here, they went looking for someone they could trust with a decision that size.

They found me online. Read through my profile. And somewhere in my bio, they saw NUS. Not their university. Just one they recognised. A name that was legible to them from across an ocean, that told them the stranger on the other end of the phone was real.

Something clicked.

One reason. That was all they gave me. A university name on a website, noticed from across an ocean.

They weren’t being careless. They were reading a signal that meant something to them personally. And they were right about what it meant.

They knew exactly what they were doing. The smile told me that.

# # #

I sat with that for a long time after we said goodbye.

Amazed. Touched. And asking myself a question, I still don’t have a clean answer to.

What had I done to deserve that kind of trust?

I had answered a call. Sent some emails. Taken photos of a neighbourhood. Done the defect inspection alone in an empty apartment. Kept the keys safe.

Nothing extraordinary. Just the work, done properly, for someone who would never know if I cut corners because he was never there to see.

Maybe that’s the answer. Maybe trust isn’t earned in the moments people are watching. Maybe it accumulates in all the small things you do when nobody is.

A university on a website. A stranger who noticed. And a decision that changed both of our lives a little.

They never stayed in the unit. It was always meant as an investment. But someone needed to take care of it. I still do, to this day.

I think about that Starbucks sometimes.

# # #

A footnote for overseas buyers: American citizens purchasing their first residential property in Singapore are not required to pay Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty (ABSD), under Singapore’s Free Trade Agreement with the United States.

The same applies to citizens and permanent residents of Liechtenstein, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. If you’re from one of these countries and considering a property purchase in Singapore, this is worth knowing.

# # #

If you’re considering investing in Singapore property from overseas and want someone who will do the work properly, whether you’re watching or not, you’re welcome to reach out.