Tag Archives: HDB News

How family’s fortunes have grown over years

Posted on 27 Sep 2009 | Comments Off on How family’s fortunes have grown over years

THE letters lamenting how singles are being priced out of the HDB market and the call to ban cash over valuation (COV) arrangements are bemusing.

My family is an example of how HDB policies have helped us improve our standard of living and how gradual price increases have helped my family upgrade our housing status.

My parents have three children and over 40 years, our family of five has moved from a one-room flat to a three-room and finally to a four-room flat in Choa Chu Kang – a location that is not ideal for some people but has reasonably good amenities. Most important, it is a place my family can afford.

Although we started out with a small one-room flat, the price increases have helped our family upgrade the size of our home.

Unlike other countries, Singapore has a unique public housing policy where the Government not only helps most of us buy our first home, but also ensures that the increasing value of our property will enable us to upgrade to the next level when we are ready. Continue reading →

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Don’t blame insufficient land release for property price surge

Posted on 27 Sep 2009 | Comments Off on Don’t blame insufficient land release for property price surge

I REFER to Monday’s Forum Online comment by Mr James Tan (’High price of flats, not affordability, is the issue’) that ‘URA did not release sufficient land to build HDB flats in a timely manner, causing pent-up demand and a sudden surge in prices’ and that ‘in the 1970s, a typical three-room flat in Marine Parade, a choice location, cost about $9,500. Today, a typical flat can fetch as much as $300,000 in the new towns’. That is a 3,000 per cent increase over 40 years.

However, the increase in flat prices is primarily due to Singapore’s growth and prosperity as well as inflation. In 1970, Singapore’s per capita GDP was US$914 and last year it was US$37,597 (S$53,000), and increase of 4,000 per cent. And, of course, good old inflation: If you remember, in old cowboy movies where a dollar coin was made of gold, they would bite it to make sure it was genuine.

Land in Singapore is limited, and I believe the Urban Redevelopment Authority has so far managed supply and demand very well to maintain price levels. One possible problem ahead is that, as younger Singaporeans are better educated, better paid and more affluent, will the older generation be left behind?

Calvin Yong

Source : Straits Times – 26 Sep 2009

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