Low Keng Fatt thinks developers may be stretching the truth with their ads.
EVERYONE wants to buy that dream home, and is willing to plonk down big bucks to live in serene, secluded surroundings.
Property developers understand that sentiment well.
Take a look at their advertisements and you will see the lengths they go to, to make you believe you are buying into something very scarce and private.
I am okay if their ad shows a profusion of greenery and amenities on the grounds of their projects.
Everyone loves flowers, nature and can identify with the ads that show happy people strolling, playing or barbecuing on the grounds.
Plenty of ads also show balconies of units draped with plants while birds circle lazily overhead as the morning, or evening, sun shines brilliantly or sets in dramatic romantic hues.
But truth is severely stretched when the artist’s rendition shows the condo sitting virtually alone in this paradise, with neighbouring buildings all set at some considerable distance away.
The space in between is filled up with more alluring swathes of greenery – and with more birds cruising above such Eden-like domains.
The reality is very far from this though.
In an urban jungle like Singapore, very few plots of land are deprived of neighbours, roads, noise and clutter.
It’s worse when the new project is taking off on space which once housed another estate but which was sold in a collective sale.
Chances are very high here that this neighbourhood is dense with people and homes.
But developers obviously do not want you to dwell on such facts.
Still, there is also something not quite right about their conjuring up vistas that are so far removed from reality.
I wonder why Singaporeans have not spoken up against such misrepresentation of facts.
Or is it because most people already know Singapore so well that they are not fooled by what they see in the ads?
Still, even if, say, 10 per cent of would-be buyers were lured to visit the showflat, based on the hooks in the ad, that is already quite a big number of misled folks.
My solution to really know the ground?
Easy, go look up the area via Google Street View.
Source : Straits Times – 17 Feb 2010
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