Hi there, I am SY. I would like to know, what are your thoughts on my investing in a condo in my late 20s, before I purchase a home of my own?

A condo is illiquid and risky. Illiquid because you need to sell the unit to unlock its value. Risky because property prices are at the mercy of government policies. There's also stuff to consider, such as finding and managing tenants and condo maintenance fees.

Do consider investing parts of your money into index funds and parts of your money into bonds (or equivalent) for a balanced investment portfolio. Balanced because I'm not sure if you will need the money in the next 7 or 8 years.​​​

Definitely recommend you not to consider buying the condo.

Your current priority should be setting aside money and saving for settling down. You just don't know when.

Having bought a condo and also ilp / endowments before... I would say condo is not a good way to invest, its just a good savings tool. If you want to collect rental income, go for reits that you are comfortable with. And go for that.

I would instead recommend setting aside some money to do investing via an RSP or equivalent - just get used to saving / squirrelling money away. Who knows by the time you may want to settle down, it may have grown sufficiently to help pay the hdb down-payment?

usually I don't give investing advice, but I buy a lot of reits. I have adjusted my ocbc blue chip investment plan to just buy xxx amt of capitaland integrated commercial trust for next year - its a way to save + invest + collect rental income over time

Another objective recommendation would be like a reits fund or the syfe reits+.

Compared to your original plan to buy the condo, a trusted reliable blue chip reit gives you rental income, without the mess of handling
1) tenant and renewals
2) interest on the loan, property taxes, maintenance fees
3) stamp duty

If you not careful about the loan, you can be easily overwhelmed by the interest and loan payments. And you might not even make capital gain by the time you want to settle down.

Out of the your regular savings, I guess your incremental tax rate is around 3.5% after considering cpf and reliefs. Would also recommend squirrelling 3.5% x 65k = 2k into cpf (amount not that significant to add value in srs). I didn't recommend go max coz you not yet married, so better not to put too much into cpf.