While Singaporeans try to live with rising inflation, and the Government attempts to cool the property market multiple times, the peculiar case of rising public housing costs continues to rise its head in the sea of rising private property prices.
Perhaps this does not happen in many other countries, where most of the time public housing is often put aside for the lower income groups or those on welfare, but in Singapore, public housing is a commodity and an investment tool. And it could be this concept which gave rise to continuously rising HDB flat prices.
According to data from the Singapore Real Estate Exchange (SRX):
In 2011, there was only 1 case of a HDB flat selling for more than $900,000.
In 2012, there were 18.
In 2013, in January and February alone, there were 18.
The trend is obvious and there seems to be no sign of doing a U-turn. Property analysts say these are usually units which provide value for money in comparision to private properties in the same area. Usually the larger units, its not longer the older resale flats in mature estates which are commanding such prices, even newer flats pricing themselves in the same range.
In January this year, a 1, 750 sq ft executive maisonette in Bishan was sold for $1.01 million, beating the record of a $1 million Queenstown executive apartment. A 5-year Jalan Membina 1,180 sq ft 5-room flat is seen to be priced at $925,000.
With even more units from choice locations coming into the market in 2 years’ time, such as those at Pinnacle@Duxton, industry experts are expecting the number of $1 million resale HDB flats to go up. Will $1 million be the new property baseline? Will the National Development Minister‘s promise to unpeg new HDB flat prices from resale flat prices truly benefit? And who will benefit? Does this really take care of those who can neither afford resale HDB flats nor private properties and yet do not qualify to purchase new flats?
