The flat prices would probably go up … by 1 per cent, 2 per cent… It will just keep on going up if the economy recovers as people expect, and if confidence returns but affordability will always be there.
National Development Minister, Mah Bow Tan
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[#2 Moe Gan Thai]
“affordability will always be there” only for you, billionheir ministers. you dare to come Potong Pasir, we will vote you out again”
That’s an excellent statement, Moe. Kudos to you.
Let’s make our vote count in the next GE. Let’s send all the papy trash to the scrap heap. That’s where they belong.
A few years ago, just 4 month shy of my 35th birthday which marks my eligibility to purchase a 3 room HDB unit under the single scheme, I had viewed a 3 room flat at Marine Parade with a full sea view for an offered price of $200,000. Just when I hit my birthday, the en bloc frenzy started and ever since the asking price for a 3 room in Marine Parade is at least $280,000 and above going for as high as $380,000 for a corner sea view unit. It has been 3 years and the seller asking prices had not let up, a sign that free market is ever propelling the valuation upwards. The agents told me this is caused by PR buyers and rich investors who had cashed out on their en bloc sales hence are buying the HDB for rental income purposes. This had led the market valuation to be irregular and unfairly spiked by this small group of investors. The social ramification is that sincere and frustrated buyers had been unfairly priced out. To add to the woe, singles are not eligible to buy direct from HDB and those earning above $3000 are not eligible for singles grant and the cheaper HDB loans. I wrote to an MP years ago expressing the singles plight. I was willing to take a bank loan and forfeit the singles grant but I sought to have my purchase made direct from HDB which is much cheaper than in the open market since I was financing under a single income. Unfortunately I was told the government policies are pro family and to allow singles to buy subsidize housing may result in social ills. I was shell shocked and till this date I still do not understand how increased home ownership by singles is a societal problem. It is ironic that young couples are now highlighting their same plight as well. Isn’t it telling that the ‘’reason’’ told to be years back can no longer hold water since the pro family couples themselves are getting the same hit albeit them financing the unit with a dual income. For whatever HDB policies and their rationales in place, they certainly isn’t functioning at least for these two classes of people, the singles as well the young middle income couples, given the ever increasing HDB prices.
I cite these real cases I know :
Two families who lived in a 4 room unit that both families co-owned (they are relatives) had decided to split for space and privacy reasons. One of the childless couple in their 60s had balloted 6 times for a studio unit unsuccessfully and finally gave up. (This is another problem which is a separate topic of discussion altogether) They recently bought a 30 over year old 3 room unit in a very original condition for $255,000 including COV. After paying the agent fees on both transactions, stamp duties, legal fees, renovation fees etc the whole unit came up to a whopping $300,000! So even if one was not to select a unit from the matured estate (Marine Parade, Queenstown etc), the average cost of a 3 room unit is still not considered affordable for the majority middle income class. For a single to take say $150,000 loan at age 35 would mean they are tied to a mortgage till their 50s or 60s, a lifestyle choice many certainly do not want to have. One often misses this other critical point , that is the value that one pay for a flat now say $300,000 will effectively cost an estimated $350,000 to $400,000 after serving say 20 to 30 years of interest. For this couple, they are left with almost nothing in their CPF except for the minimum sum of which half is pledged to the property I think.
I cite another friend situation whose parents are married but not leaving together. She is a single and staying with one parent. Both parents are co-owners of the house. One parent is renting a room at $500 a month and my friend had been paying the rental for the last 8 years so she would have spent close to $50,000 by now. She does not have an option because she was not at an eligible age to buy in the earlier years and whilst she is now she feels that the current spiked price does not warrant the hefty loan she has to lock herself in for many years. She wants so badly to buy a unit for her other parent and is bearing the guilt that she is not able to provide a haven for her other parent in their golden years. At the same time she knows it does not make financial sense to keep forking the rental cost. These are the citizens out there who are in real conundrums and dire straits.
I hear so very often in newspapers reports of investors snapping up condos and then profiting from the sales. The recent one I heard was someone who bought a high end condo in the east at over $700,000 before it was officially launch. We speculated that he has connections hence had received exclusive prelaunch invites. He later sold the condo for 2 million. It makes me cringed each time I hear rich people out there getting richer through property speculation whilst the commoners are struggling so hard to have a small piece of a haven from a land they call their home. I have no qualms of people getting rich but what frustrates me is that HDB pricing tails behind the private pricing hence all these speculation has a spill over ill effect on the general public housing pricing. Short of being disillusioned by this free market ballooning which never seem to burst, the alternative lifestyle choice that had crossed many minds is migration. I’ve known friends who had left the country and I still often hear this as an escape route whenever lamentations of high mortgage loans and education stress surfaced. It may just be a matter of time before more will take the plunge and find a new haven somewhere else.
I know a reversal will create negative equity for many but for the sake of our generation the prices cannot keep going up. The government is the only authority figure who can intervene in the free market and bring to par what is irregular by renewed public policies. The US government has done it to save their corporations. Perhaps it’s time the Singapore do so to save their citizens.
affordable for them only~
Mr Mah; Stop fooling yourself and the citizens….”Market Susdidy” is NOT SUBSIDY…..(HDB has no moral ground to make a profit because it is a Public Subsidised Housing Statutory Board for the People of Singapore)
SUBSIDY is a reduction in price from COST OF CONSTRUCTION…not a DISCOUNT FROM MARKET PRICE….
Please stop your childish semantics and face the truth….your treatment of Singaporeans as fools will not endear you to the citizens…if anything else many of us have decided your arrogance, your colleagues’ arrogance and immoral ways have goaded us to rersolve to vote in the opposition in the next GE,.
I urge you to prove you are still needed by the people and stand for election in a Single Ward Constituency in the next GE.
[#55 Bobby tan]
That is good adult advice you are handing out to kiddo Mah.
Hope the kiddo understands what you saying; otherwise we would all be wasting our breath.
rgds
All my children…….five in all (thank goodness; I did not succumb to the facist eugenics policy of MM in the 60s.) have indicated they will emigrate.
In fact two have already left.
I tell and encourage them to go…..
Leave this godforsaken place to the greedy, mercenery, self serving, self aggrandizing highest paid paid politicians ……they can have it all to themselves..
I have spoken to many young people of below 30 years and almost ALL want to leave this hell hole.
I say good luck to the greedy; wicked politicians.
The Govt of Singapore has had 33% of Singaporeans voting against them, and they know this will increase. When it does, they should lose 50% or so in the next election. Taking that cue, they have found a solution. They are simply importing new voters from China and India desperately quickly. Obviously, the foreigners will be happy with the host government for giving them a citizenship and a safe land to live in. So happy that they will happily vote for the incumbent govt.
The govt doesn’t like dissent. The foreigners, haven’t been through life here, will only see the juicy carrot, and will accept citizenship; hence a valid voter for the incumbent govt.
Singaporeans, you are too slow to wake up. They win again.
Flats are affordable when im drawing a minister equivant salary.wats is affordabilty?
wat is PUBLIC housing, Public TRansport?
is New HDB homes affordable?
i doubt so.many of our salary has not increase alot thru the years.alot of the employers
are jus squeezing us dry.how to afford 250k homes now?
Union areBullS**t.
no minimum salary cap.i pity young ppl next time.
MBT came into the government by the backdoor via a GRC. Standing alone he never won. Even now LKY recently admitted in not so many words that he should loose his seat if he could not win it himself. Well let him stand alone and see if he can win alone.
One wonders whether the recent building of rental flats in tampines and pasir ris is to help the poor or rather the influx of “foreign talent” mostly from china to rent these flats cheaper from HDB rather than on the open market where they will have to pay higher rentals. Pasir Ris does not at the moment have 3 room flats. All the flats are 4, 5 and Ex flats. So is the government and MBT trying to cover up the real reason for such flats?
Time will tell when the flats are built and we see who will be living there!
Whoever cooked up the policy of allowing PRs to own a flat should be sent to the flame of eternal torture. It’s a blatantly failed policy that has dominoed such a huge chain of ill effects, ranging from escalating HDB prices to competition for affordable flats. Why hasn’t any of these policy makers study the public housing policies of other countries? Don’t they realise that public housing is MEANT for the CITIZENS only ?? Now a NO U-TURN situation is created and compounded by the ever increasing of PRs being dished out. As a uni student about to graduate, I doubt I’m able to own a flat until I’m in my 30s/40s. And please tell me now how to start a family with decent space to live ???
Alison//
Nobody cooked up the policy. Just that our incompetent Minister MBT failed to pre-empt the situation and 25 minutes too late.
Who wants Minister with such calibre?
(Let alone whether Ministers should be paid $Millions for serving the country in the comfort of their offices, while our NS guys get peanuts for risking their lives).
Alison,
My children …all of them have indicated to me they will want to emigrate…I have more than 4 children (fortunately; I did not believe the Old Man that two is enough…(He and his Elitist Policy and Eugenics Practice)…I have proven him wrong all my children are tertiary educated and I started off as a lowly Factory Worker earning $4.50cents per day.
I encourage them to follow their dreams elsewhere and do not worry about us the Parents…and .they will sponsor us over. to their Country of Adoption.
For you information I bought my first Public Housing Flat when I was 23years old and I did not have to suck up to my Parents until I was 35years old and by the time I was 30years old I bought my first Semi-Detached House…
Mr. Mah is either the greatest LIAR on earth or is a plain unmitigated IDIOT to suggest that young singaporeans should mortgage their 30 years of life to a hole in the wall which they do not even own…..
Mr. Mah should resign forwith his position because He is not only incompetent but also callous.
I feel sorry for you….you should consider emigrating too…this forsaken place is going to the Dogs…literally.
Discuss with your Parents…because when they are sponsored over to your Country of Adoption they can liquidate their flats and all other assets and let the Foreign Trash (who already consist of more than 35% of the Population but take up more than 50% of all jobs) have the so called “Homes” built by HDB…
Both Born 1 Jan 1980. Age:30
Annual income = $20,000
Monthly income = $1,667
Monthly take home pay = $1,334 (not eligible for income tax)
Monthly CPF Contributions cal. By CPF website = $575.00
Cost of 3 room : $200,000
Loan from HDB = $180,000 not incl. 10% deposit upon purchase.
Monthly HDB installment = $721 based on 2.6% rate
Net Monthly installment = $147.00
Monthly household take home pay = $2,668 both parents work.
Monthly household disposable income after HDB installment = $2,521.
Transport cost = $200 total.
Household expenses including childcare and food = $,1000.
Misc expenses = $500 incl. PUB bills.
Monthly disposable income after ALL COSTS = $821 – eligible to buy 1 Coach bag =)
HDB not affordable? Lol. As long as you don’t buy car, don’t have expensive renovations, don’t have expensive weddings, don’t have expensive lifestyle, for a couple earning only $40,000 gross annual income combined, HDB is indeed affordable.
Looks like some of us have woken up, belatedly, to the incompetencies and bad policies of our government.
Based on how many years of mortgage?
This family not supposed to have Holidays; not supoose to fall sick, not suposed to go to wedding dinners , not supposed to celeberate birthdays, not supoosed to have replacement clothes, not supposed to enjoy enything else except eat sleep, pay mortgage, take public transport, no taxis please…”Where do they want to dine tonight? in a food court in a restuarant? “
No point complaining and whinning….either vote the opposition in the next GE or emigrate.