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Pricey Editor,
The problem of how HDB value its BTO new flats was first raised some twenty years in the past on my own and several other Discussion board contributors.
I’m a 75-year-old tertiary-educated Pioneer Technology Senior Citizen who had accomplished full-time Nationwide Service. Like many involved mother and father, I used to be rightly nervous how our youngsters and grandchildren can deal with our runaway property costs.
It is a nationwide concern of concern to all Singaporeans, together with these aspiring to personal non-public property. Why? As a result of if HDB flat costs are “sky-high”, non-public property costs shall be “astronomically-high”.
Our excessive property costs are a significant contributor to our excessive value of residing. Common Singaporeans are impacted in these 3 ways:
> As a house purchaser, having to pay a lot for a “brick-and-cement entity” and incurring big long-term monetary debt.
> As an worker. If an employer has to pay excessive workplace lease, can it afford to pay higher salaries, increments and bonuses?
> As a shopper. If a shopkeeper or grocery store has to pay excessive business lease, will it not cost greater costs for items and companies?
I commend younger Singaporean Lynne Tan for her two insightful Discussion board letters. However I take nice umbrage on the two long-winded parrot-like HDB replies (Oct 29, Aug 16) that have been unconvincing and contradictory.
HDB Group Director Tan Chew Ling mentioned “That is why our BTO flat costs will not be pegged to the market however are considerably subsidised to make sure affordability.” Whereas HDB Director Ignatius Lourdesamy mentioned, “HDB first establishes the market worth of the BTO flat by contemplating the costs of comparable resale flats close by.”
Within the Nineteen Seventies, HDB’s new flat costs at Marine Parade Property have been: 3-room $17,000; 4-room $20,000; 5-room $35,000. Present median costs are respectively $228,000; $347,000; $473,000.
Inflation in building prices can’t absolutely clarify such huge will increase in promoting costs. The true purpose is that, some 30 years in the past, HDB quietly made an unannounced change from a hitherto “cost-based” to a “market-based” new flat pricing.
It was solely in 2007, following mounting public anger, did HDB publicly revealed that “…the costs of recent HDB flats are primarily based available on the market costs of resale HDB flats, and never their prices of building…”
Certainly, HDB’s “market-based” pricing is definitely the root trigger behind the costs of recent flats and resale flats chasing one another in a unending upward spiral — which is detrimental to consumers of each new and resale flats.
Younger Singapore {couples} additionally now face the “double whammy” of paying a lot upfront for his or her HDB flats, with their values hitting zero on the finish of their 99-year leases.
Below HDB Minister Mah Bow Tan, this was an excerpt from an ST 17 Oct 2009 INSIGHT article “Are HDB flats actually subsidised?”:
“…Regardless of repeated calls, the HDB has not revealed the breakdown of the costs of its flats, and it once more declined when INSIGHT requested the board to offer the figures of 1 unit…”
Below HDB Minister Khaw Boon Wan, this was an excerpt from an ST 18 Oct 2011 report “Name to re-look pricing of recent flats”:
“…Giving Singaporeans reasonably priced roofs over their heads was uppermost within the thoughts of PAP MP Zainudin Nodin, when he referred to as on the Authorities to re-look on the manner new HDB flats are priced, with a view to reducing the costs additional. Present house costs fear him, he mentioned, as a result of from listening to his residents he finds that Singaporeans are spending a big chunk of their incomes on paying their housing loans…”
Present HDB Minister Desmond Lee had merely proclaimed that HDB’s new flats are “closely sponsored” and therefore “very reasonably priced” — with out substantiating these claims by revealing the “full info and figures” that HDB has out there.
New British PM Rishi Sunak rightly mentioned “Belief is earned. And I’ll earn yours.” After 20 lengthy years, it’s time for Prime Minister-in-waiting Lawrence Wong to step ahead together with his credible public solutions as half of his Ahead Singapore Dialogue to those two easy questions:
(i) WHY is the HDB not doing the appropriate factor as a not-for-profit low-cost housing developer by passing on to our residents the economy-of-scale value financial savings in its big developments by pricing new flats on a cost-based breakeven foundation?
(ii) WILL the HDB do the appropriate factor for Singaporeans in discarding the present “market-based pricing” and reverting again to a cost-recovery “cost-based pricing”?
David L Okay See
Ship in your scoops to information@theindependent.sg
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