Paul Immigrations Reviews: Apply for Singapore PR the Smart Way

Because of its lack of natural disasters, political stability and low crime rate, Singapore as a developed island-state, is a popular choice for people seeking Permanent Residency and new citizenship in another country.

There are many benefits that a Singapore Permanent Resident (PR) holds over non-citizens.

Some of the Key Benefits Are: 

👍 Able to live in, enter and leave Singapore without the need to apply for a separate visa.

👍 Able to apply for a long term visit pass for the immediate family.

👍 No need to reapply for a work permit when changing jobs.

👍 Enjoy the benefits of the CPF scheme.

👍 Higher priority in loan applications.

👍 Lower stamp duties in property purchase and the eligibility to purchase resale HDB flats.

👍 Subsidised rates for medical, childcare and education expenses.

Also importantly, in order to become a naturalised Singapore citizen, one of the criteria is to be a PR for at least two years.

While the thought of becoming a PR in Singapore might be alluring, the process of applying to be one might be daunting. This is especially so for those with no prior experience.

For first-timers, the tedious paperwork and unfamiliarity with the entire process can be a big hurdle to climb.

Even though the PR application can be done online, first-time applicants might face difficulties in navigating the e-Service website.

For re-applicants who faced previous rejection(s), it can be emotionally distraught especially if the reason for past rejection(s) is not known.

So rather than fumbling through the process, why not get the help of an expert to guide you through while saving you time and effort?

 

 

Paul Immigrations is a Singapore-based immigration consultancy firm that specialises in assisting applicants in their dream to become a SPR.

Since their establishment in 2016, the firm has helped over 15,000 customers with their key insights on the process. Thanks to the expertise and intimate knowledge of their consultants, the consultancy has maintained a high success rate.

The Various Groups Who Can Benefit from Paul Immigrations' Services

➤ Employment Pass or S Pass Holder

➤ Spouse of a Singapore Citizen or PR

➤ Student studying in Singapore

➤ Aged parent of a Singapore Citizen
 

➤ Unmarried or legally adopted child aged below 21

➤ Foreign Investor in Singapore

Paul Immigrations Reviews: How Do They Help You?
  

1. Expert Insights

The company's team of experts has extensive experience in the process. And they put this to good use by offering key insights and tips to help you edge one step closer to obtain your approval.

      2. Documentation

Since all PR applications are to be submitted online through the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority Singapore (ICA) portal*, the completeness and accuracy of documents are of paramount importance as any missing documents can render your submission invalid.

Let the consultancy take this worry off you as they vet through the documents prior to submission. 

* Foreign investors can apply for PR at the Singapore Economic Development Board under the Global Investor Programme.

3. Gather More Essential Documents

You would want your best qualities and contributions to be presented to set your application apart from others, thus increasing your chance of success.

Let the team help you with these additional documents. 

4. Design Cover Letters

While not a mandatory document, another way for your application to stand out among the thousands received by ICA is to include a cover letter in your submission.

The firm's specialised team of writers will help you to craft a personalised cover letter to highlight your strengths and emphasise your edge over others.

This is done to set your submission apart from the rest.

      5. Be With You Throughout

The number and type of documents to be submitted can be overwhelming. What’s more, a single mistake can render your application invalid which will be a big waste of time and effort.

Let the experts at Paul Immigrations guide you through the entire process to ensure you have not left out any documents or important information.

      6. Save Time & Fuss

The e-Service portal on the ICA website can be confusing for the uninitiated. Save your precious time and hassle by engaging Paul Immigrations to guide you through the portal and ensure all the required forms are filled and filed correctly.

To accomplish the above, the firm has developed a systematic 6-steps process to ensure nothing is left to chance. 

Step 1: Call up the Prospective Client

As a first step, a consultant will conduct interviews with you via phone calls to ascertain your eligibility for Singapore PR application.

The consultant will require information such as the type of work pass you are holding, whether you have family ties with any Singapore citizen or PR, and whether you have any pending applications with ICA.
 

At the same time, the consultant will assess your profile involving basic information such as your age, length of stay in Singapore and salary.

Step 2: Schedule an Appointment

Once the consultant has confirmed you are holding the correct work pass, a physical interview will be scheduled to verify your physical work pass and review your profile to gauge your likelihood of a successful ICA PR application.

The consultant will also go through with you on the factors that will affect your PR approval.

After this you can decide whether you wish to engage their services.

Step 3: Request of Documents 

At this stage you will be requested to provide the relevant documents to an Immigration Specialist either by hardcopy or email. 

These documents include:

➤ Audited form submission (also known as Form 4A) 

➤ Correct compulsory documents as required by ICA

➤ Essential additional documents (that reflect your participation in charity work, community engagement, etc)

Upon receipt of these documents, the specialist will advise if the documents satisfy the PR criteria and requirements of ICA.

Step 4: Specialist handles the Paperwork

Based on the information garnered from you so far, the Immigration Specialist will guide you to complete form.

The firm’s in-house writer will also craft a personalised cover letter to be included.

Step 5: Specialist Submits Your PR Application

With every aspects covered, the specialist will proceed to guide you with the submission of your application online either remotely or together with you.

It takes an average of one to two months from Step 2 to 5.

Step 6: Outcome of Your PR Application

ICA takes about four to six months to go through every PR application. Depending on the result, the immigration specialist will advise you accordingly on what to do next.

Whether you are a first-time applicant or a re-applicant, Paul Immigrations can definitely help you in your PR application. So give them a call at +65 6206 6390 for their professional consultation.

You can also visit their website to gauge your likelihood of a successful ICA PR application.

This post is written in collaboration with Paul Immigrations Pte Ltd.

Feb 2020 Updates

Feb 2020

Portfolio Value after market close: S$130,500.85

Wifey's Portfolio Value after market close: S$61,970.85

Purchase: None

Sold: None

Dividends:

Suntec REIT @ $93.88
CCT @ $154.40

Received $11.75 from shares being borrowed on the SBL programme. 

Slight increase in portfolio value over last month end. Surprisingly as the market is a bloody red today with STI dropped close to 100 points.

Several counters have reached or is closing to my TP. Might enter in batches next week depending on the trend. 

My Plan for this Virus Crisis

We are now in the midst of the Wuhan virus outbreak with the spread showing no sign of abatement. Neither has a cure or vaccine been found yet. 

To make matter worse, another outbreak of H5N1 bird flu has been reported in Hunan, China. 

Naturally these led to a bearish trend among the stock markets worldwide. 

I'm sure most people already has a plan in mind on how to tackle this crisis with reference to their investments.

Some will stay on the side line and try to catch the bottom.

Some will accumulate, citing the famous adage: Be greedy when others are fearful.

Some will attempt to short the market. 

So what's my plan for this?

It is quite simple actually. It's a hybrid of the first two strategies.

1) I am spending most of my time on the side line trying to accumulate more funds while watching the news and market closely.

2) Whenever a counter in my watchlist hits my initial target price, I will do a quick re-analysis and buy a small batch.

2a) Key to this is buy in batches. Because the market can turn in any direction any time. So if the share price of the counter drops further to a certain percentage, I will buy in again pending another quick look through.

2b) If a cure or vaccine is found for the virus, the market would almost certainly rebound sharply.

Then I can buy on the rebound also. However the key to buy on the rebound is that one must be nimble. So it is imperative to watch the news closely.

Now this is something that I can't say for sure that I will have the time to do it.

Hence with point 2a above, at least I would not have missed out totally on good opportunities. 

CRCT-MNACT REIT Maybe?

I was thinking last night that with the flurry of M&A among REITs recently, would we see a merger between CapitaLand Retail China Trust (CRCT) and Mapletree North Asia Commercial Trust (MNACT)?

Afterall CapitaLand bought over Ascendas-Singbridge not too long ago.

The portfolio of CRCT and MNACT are similar in nature to an extent. They are synergistic geographically and in the type of properties - retail. 

Some basic metrics of both counters

CRCT

Market Cap (based on $1.53 share price) : $1.84 B

No. of Properties: 13 (China) 

Property Value: $3.8 B

MNACT 

Market Cap (based on $1.16 share price): $3.7 B

No. of Properties: 9 (China, HK, Japan) 

Property Value: $7.6 B

I couldn't find any information on market capitalisation from CRCT's report but a quick calculation got me $1.84 B. 

So if a merger does occur, we are looking at a REIT with about $5.54 B market capitalisation and 22 properties in North East Asia worth $11.4 B thereabout.

I also did a quick comparison against some of the REITs among my portfolio for curiosity sake. 

MLT Market Cap: $6.15 B

CCT Market Cap: $7.9 B

Suntec Market Cap: $5.2 B

Anyway the above is just a wild thought on a boring night. Just read and forget.

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On a side note, I drove my bro to a certain bubble tea shop just now.

Despite being a Tuesday afternoon, I saw streams of youngsters going into the shop.

That got me curious. After that I found out this shop is actually a franchise by a local mini celebrity. And a really famous singer once said this is his favourite tea shop in Taiwan*. 

(Not going to name names as I don't want to advertise for them and more importantly, I seriously find the tea so so only. Haha.. But some of you might recognise from this bottle.)

The busybody me did a quick back-of-the-envelope calculations. 

Their tea costs between $4 - $7. And they already sold nearly 500 cups by 2 pm. 

Basing on $5 a cup and a sales of 1,000 cups per day, their annual revenue is easily $1.8 M. 

With a 50% margin (easily for a F&B product like bubble tea), they are earning close to a million every year. 

Cool.

Lessons learnt: 

1) Power of networking

Especially if you know famous people. 

2) Power of celebrity endorsement

Just a simple one sentence remark by that famous singer can make this shop people mountain people sea.

Really power.

* Edited some information. 

SGX E-learning

Decided to do something fulfilling again today. While baby M was having her afternoon nap, I logged into SGX to do some elearning on Specified Investment Products (SIPs).

I must admit while I know about warrants and Daily Leverage Certificates (DLCs), I am not familiar with the other SIPs so this website is a good place to start reading up with.

For those interested, the website is

https://onlineeducation.sgx.com/specifiedinvestmentproducts/

All in all I took about an hour for the reading and quiz. Importantly, I have gained alot of useful knowledge from here for my investment journey.

The topics covered includes:

1) Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)

2) Exchange Traded Notes (ETNs)

3) Futures

4) Options

5) Structured Warrants

6) DLCs

7) Leveraged Inverse Products

Oh for those interested in trading SIPs but do not have the relevant qualification or experience, I believe reading these modules and doing the quiz online can help you to obtain the necessary approval from your broker to trade. You have to pass the quiz of course though :)

Anyway below are some screenshots for sharing purpose.

Go ahead and read up more if you think it helps. Enjoy guys!

Finally Made My CPF Nomination

So I had some free time yesterday and I decided to do something meaningful which is to make my CPF nomination.

What prompted me to do it are two reasons:

1) Firstly it is now possible to make the nomination online via cpf.gov.sg. This means it is super convenient as compared to last time. 

2) Secondly and more importantly is this:

Now this made me sit up. Why should I let my money be handled by a stranger who get a cut of it after I passed on? 

No way I'm going to let that happen so I quickly made use of the pocket of time I had and logged into the CPF website.  

The whole process of nomination is quite straightforward and self-explanatory. All in all it took me about 10 min to complete the process to ensure my CPF will be distributed according to my nomination.

The information needed are as follows:

1) Your SingPass

2) Your nominee(s) name and NRIC No. (You can nominate up to 8 nominees) 

3) Name, NRIC No. and email address / HP No. of two witnesses.

With the above details you are all set to do your nomination.

Do note that after you have made your nomination, your two witnesses have to log into the CPF website to confirm (witness) your nomination within 7 days.

For curiosity sake, I went to check on the fees payable to the Public Trustee's Office if the CPF is to be distributed by them and the details are as follows:

Hope you have made your nomination too. 

January 2020 Updates

Jan 2020

Portfolio Value after market close: S$130,401.20

Wifey's Portfolio Value after market close: S$64,721.20

Purchase: 

1) CapitaLand Retail China Trust (CRCT), 5,000 shares @ $1.53
2) Japfa, accepted allocation of 3,000 rights and applied for another 7,000 excess

Sold: None

Dividends: SingTel @ $340

Portfolio value increased to ~$130K this month with the addition of the 5,000 shares of CRCT. This is one of the counters in my watch list and when its share price fell to my comfortable level, I proceeded to queue and managed to get it at $1.53.

 

Have written a short piece on this in the previous post.

 

Have decided to take up my Japfa allocation and apply for some excess as I view this as a nice opportunity to increase my holdings at a lower price than market.

There are a few other counters with price getting near to my TP. Will be watching closely.

My focus this year remains non-REITs, particularly banks, as part of my portfolio balancing.

 

Share price of DBS has fallen by quite a bit today before recovering slightly in the last two hours. However it is still above $25 which is still too high in my opinion.