Rooms with a view

After years of renting, this family found their perfect home: an East Coast HDB flat on a high floor

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Geometric wooden shelves separate the living and dining areas.

When the Tollemers arrived for their viewing of this five-room resale Housing Board flat in Bedok South, the realtor informed them that someone else had placed a deposit earlier that afternoon.

"We were pretty bummed because we loved it," says France-born Eric Tollemer of the 22nd-floor unit, which offers a stunning view of the sea. "It was very sunny. The sea was like turquoise. We were like: 'This is a perfect place."

He and his wife, Singaporean Sue Yeo, placed a deposit for a similar unit on a lower floor. But, just a day before the final paperwork was to be signed, the realtor called to say the first unit was back on the market.

The couple in their 50s - he specialises in shopfitting works for luxury brands, while she is a beautician - quickly forfeited their earlier deposit and secured the home they had first fallen in love with.

The 1,323 sq ft unit, though structurally sound, needed an overhaul.