Better prices with good kits?
http://soft.com.sg/forum/forumdisplay.php/53-Drums-Buy-Sell
Some of our fellow users here can sell some very good condition kits at good prices.
I saying this assuming that you're a beginner who just starting this hobby, please pardon me if otherwise.
First question: Are you sound-conscious or just wanna practice?
Practice:
If you just wana practice, do yourself(or your parents) a favour and camp the buy/sell threads. Good drum kits can come along under $500 anytime, matched with good cymbals (eg: range of cymbals from drum_hobbyist) you can get a killer kit that probably cost you another two or three times more if you went to Yamaha or Swee Lee. At the cost of warranty, but the kit that's sitting behind me is 5 years old before I bought it from another softie, probably going to be 6 years now, its still in good condition, like its only bought months ago. Just look out for rusty kits if you mind the cosmetics and stuff, especially the metal parts (brown rust or worse).
If you die-die want first-hand, do consider Ranking Sports or Music Themes, their Lazer/Carlos kit comes around $500 or so first hand with everything ready for you to practice.
For good sound:
If you wanna get a decent first-hand kit in that budget, be prepared to spend abit more. Most kit under a thousand from my knowledge uses stock heads and heads which IMO really sounds like crap which I'm better off playing drums on my table, or pots and pans.
Replacing all the heads of a typical 5-piece kit would take apox $200 from what I know of the current market if you're only changing the batter head(the side you're hitting). Multiply by 2 if you plan to change both sides.
Learn to tune if you haven't, Your kit will sound such that you'll never regret changing the stock heads away.
Another is cymbals, unless you know how to hammer cymbals like some softies I read around who does it, don't bother with stock heads. Get something basic like Zildjian's ZBT, Sabian's B8s/XS20s or even Paistes 101s/202s to begin with if you're not looking to spend hundreds on a single piece of metal. You can even consider other cymbal brands such as Istanbul Mehmet, Wuhan, Dream, etc.
The three brand and series I mentioned comes in set boxes which allows you to begin without worrying about anything unlike someone like me who's missing a proper ride right now.
On a side note: I started with e-kits, a Yamaha DTXplorer.