Small Thought about Apartment or Landed House?

Lately, after got married, I had discussion with my wife whether we should provide our future house with an apartment or landed house. Today, we live in a rented studio room, close to my office. Even though we have been discussing about it for many times, I still hesitate to decide. It's so never ending thought. Every choice has strengths and weaknesses. Hence my wife and I should take the right one.

To be honest, I prefer apartment to landed house. It is cheaper (although it is still not affordable for newly weds to be purchased anyway), usually located near city center and public transportation, and nowadays it offers mixed-use concept so the residents will easily get to catch up some groceries or run for errands only by few walks. I also like living in high rise building, seeing cityscape and viewing everything from top as if they are all toys.

Source: https://www.pinterest.com/explore/city-apartment-decor/

But, of course, its main weakness is it doesn't have land property right to the owners. For some reason, it also doesn't provide enough private room, so consequently the residents should share the facility for instance, garden, terrace, parking lot, etc. It is so-called you get what you pay for. As far as I know, also the property of apartment is unable to be owned for long term or it has limit until only few decades.

Meanwhile, landed houses even though come with very expensive price almost provide all the things every family needs such as land property, private room, private garden, carport, etc. In Indonesia, this option is always be the priority no matter what your financial ability is. If you don't have a lot of money, you can buy it at the remote area, far away from city center. I think that is why Jakarta always becomes bigger every year due to its uncontrolled sprawl. But again, it feels safe if we have land property because the price will always increase like crazy. For instance, this year you buy IDR 1 million per m sq, next year it possibly will become IDR 2-3 million per m sq, and in next 5 years you'll be a billioner. It will be more fantastic if the district near your house is being build by toll road, commuter train, and shopping mall. What a tantalizing investment, isn't it? The price of apartments is also being affected by city development though, but I think it is not as high as landed houses.

My recent discussion with my wife, she and I agree that for now with our current condition, our job, our plan, our need, we prefer to own a studio apartment in Jakarta rather than to push ourselves buying (remember, not by cash, should be credit) a landed house very far from the capital. In our next years, we will live and raise our children in an apartment. We dream to buy a landed house not in Greater Jakarta, maybe in Semarang, maybe in Rembang, we haven't known yet. That dream house will be our retirement shelter some day. Or maybe if someday I have more money, I will buy a land in Jakarta's periphery just for investment not for my family's home.

Regarding raising-children stuff, at one time, I have had a thought to conduct research about how children in apartment and vertical housing are being raised and the effect of their house to their growth. I am actually very sure, those children are raised as well as the ones who live in landed houses, but somehow I need a scientific evidence. Well, I hope living in apartment is not bad.

I Miss my (Other) Past

I remember when I was in Elementary to Junior High School, I was very addicted to The Sims, from The Sims original to The Sims 2. After that, I grew up and felt it boring LOL. Well, what I love when I play the simulation games like The Sims or SimCity (FYI, Simcity is the game that I have constantly played since High School till now. I love this game so much!) is I can have another life. I feel that I can forget my problem just for a while and take a "vacation" to another place.

Now, I try to play The Sims again. Initially, I wanted to find out something that I can use to design my dream house. Google Sketch Up seemed too complicated for me. Other free applications both for Android and PC seemed the same way. Because they actually are made for Architects and they provide real measurement and other stuffs for real design of house. I just needed something that easy to use, but be able to show 3D perspective, and moreover I wished I can play it with some simulation humans in it xD

I remember that at college life I was playing The Sims 3. But at that time I was not too excited because it was boring and I preferred to play SimCity instead as it suited my major in university. Recently, I just realized that The Sims 3 was the best choice for me to design house. It is 2009 game and doesn't require high requirement, though I think it has adequate 3D graphics and smooth movement, like it just needs 512 MB RAM as minimal requirement. OMG, nowadays PC/laptop always provides 2 GB RAM as the minimum specs and 512 is just insanely too low. I was so happy! Eventually, I installed it in my laptop and yes, I can build my house now, wohooooo!

I like to design some like tiny house or small house which requires us to make limited space efficiently. I'm always so excited when I browse web and find tiny house design from container or just small cube and it looks so spacey due to the good interior design. I want to build that one.

And here it is my first 2 stories small house design. I don't know how many meter square my house area hahaha but compared to sims size (and compared to regular original house provided by the game LOL) it looks small. Actually, I really wanted to build tiny house but because the sims can't tolerate human circulation trick so that seemed impossible :(

My Small House

My house's First Floor comprises of living room, study room/mini library, kitchen and dining room, and a bathroom. Actually I think the study room is redundant but Idk I really want that room, something like just a small room to stay alone and enjoy daydreaming or reading book. I also add a sliding door just to make alternative escape.

First floor, ah looks homey!

First floor another side

Second Floor is only for 2 bedrooms and amazingly a bathroom. For making this floor right, it was too complicated honestly. The reason was again that The Sims couldn't tolerate circulation trick. It couldn't accept a double-bed located right next to the wall. It should be located in the middle and this really drove me crazy then. But after tried so many alternatives, I found the best one. One thing that I really like from this house is I can make a very small bathroom even though the space is very limited hahahaha...

To make it more attractive and challenging, I didn't use any cheats. I preferred to earn money from work and built the house from that money. What a life! Hahaha...

Second Floor from bird view

Second Floor Plan

The bonus from playing The Sims 3 is I can simulate myself finally married and make a family with my girlfriend. Before it really happens, I can make it as if it is real. What an amusing game, right? Hohoho...

My Unpopular Destinations Dream

As a weirdo, I think about a lot of stuffs very often. Even though those are really important or just bizarre thoughts. One of them is about the place list I want to visit in my lifetime. The main problem is that list isn't common to be the trip destination hahahaha... Not because they are such horrible or scary places, but they are not commonly chosen as the destination dream. Well, that's what weirdos do, isn't that?

So, here they are my unpopular destinations to be visited someday (hopefully, with my wife and children :p):

1. Night Safari at Singapore

I always wonder how that very tiny country has an area for providing a natural attraction. Perhaps what the wise says that "limitation makes you more creative" is definitely true. Actually, I'm not so interested with the safari itself, but I'm more attracted to explore how Singapore can preserve its natural resources while it doesn't have sufficient land to be developed anymore.

Night Safari Singapore Sign

Located in the middle of Singapore mainland

2. Az Zulfi city

Yes, it is. It's very unpopular city to be visited. The only reason I want to visit is clear: It's similar to my name! It's situated in the middle of Saudi Arabia. Wikipedia says that it has extremely hot weather during summer. There's no remarkable tourist attraction there. Based on my research, the sites where tourist can visit are Az Zulfi mosque (which is not too historical) and some beautiful landmarks. Another fact that praises me is it has an airport with IATA code ZUL.

Main road

City Panorama

3. San Diego

Well, it will be too naive if I say that San Diego is unpopular. But I'm quite sure most people will rarely choose this place unless you are a geek. San Diego is the city in California, USA, where the most famous comic-con is annually held. The top reason why I really want to go there is that this is the place where I can meet Power Rangers' actors and everything related to this heroic icon. Yes, I'm a biggest fan of Power Rangers and I've been dreaming to visit this event someday at least once in my life xD

City Scenery

The Comic Con! Please, I want to visit it!

4. Curitiba

Curitiba is a city which the most planners and planning students learn to as a best practice of city planning. In every (almost EVERY) lesson that we take to discuss about good infrastructure, good transportation, good land use management, and everything as the best practice, those are always exemplified by this Brazilian city. FYI, for those who live in Jakarta, you surely know TransJakarta or actually known as Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). That transportation system was firstly introduced in Curitiba. I wish that I can visit this city someday and observe by myself what actually this city offers.

Bird view

BRT system, the first in the world

5. Kupang

Kupang is the capital of NTT province, Indonesia. I was living in this city but when I was very young. Also, in short period too. My mom said that we were living for just 2 years and then we moved again to live in Garut, West Java. I'm just curious about this city because I had lived there and whether I wanted or not, this city surely contributed a lot to my growing phase. In 2012, I visited to NTT but instead of visiting Kupang, I had a trip to Labuan Bajo and Komodo Islands.

City of Kupang

Those dreams are absolutely not able to be granted in the near future. I have to save a lot of money to make them come true. But, making a short list of dream is free, isn't it?