After being
starved of our national newspapers for the past few days, the wife and I came
across a couple of articles this morning that we like to give our
1. HDB as master land developer and price regulator?
This was
apparently suggested by Mr. Ho Kwon Ping (aka Executive Chairman of Bayan Tree
Holdings and the better half of ex-NMP Claire Chang). And Mr. Alan Ng had
written to the Straits Times Forum explaining why this is not the way forward.
The wife and I
did not manage to read the full context of Mr. Ho's speech. So basing it purely on face
value, we wonder why Mr. Ho felt that HDB can actually do a better job than
what the market is able to do now. This is especially given the less than
stellar track record of HDB in "timing the market" when comes to
building of public flats.
While we firmly
believed that pricing for public flats should be regulated simply because of
the fact that it is built with taxpayers' money and subsidized (we know some
may disagree on this point), we also maintained that private home market should
largely be left to free market forces albeit certain "guided policies" set
by the Government - we already have much of these (at current juncture,
probably a tad too much) in place what's with the ABSD, SSD and more
effectively, the TDSR.
Any attempt for a
government stat board to regulate prices in the private home market is likely
to lead to more inefficiencies and ...in our humble opinion as always... a
futile exercise.
2. Let retirees buy resale HDB flats/EC but keep
private property for rental income
Mr. Richard Sim
wrote to Voices (i.e. the Forum page in TODAY) to ask that retirees be allowed to keep
their private property for rental income when they decide to downgrade to live
in a HDB flat. He mentioned that there are already families who own HDB flats
and allowed to purchase private properties because they have fulfilled the 5
years Minimum Occupation Period (MOP). They can then rent out their HDB flats
after they have moved into their private properties. However, retirees who want
to buy a HDB flat (resale) or a small EC to live in during their retirement
years are not allowed to do so unless they sell off their private property first. So
Mr. Sim questioned the apparent differential treatment between the 2 groups.
The wife and I must
admit that we are not as well-informed on the existing HDB ruling when comes to families
who rent out their HDB flats after 5 years as they buy and move to private
properties. However, we are aware of people around us who have done so. Again going by the notion that HDB flats are taxpayer-subsidised housing, we cannot
understand why HDB will allow families to hold on to and rent out their flats
after they have moved into private properties. Some will say that the MOP is
already a penalty in itself, but we view this as a "condition" of
eligibility for owning and continue to reside in a public (subsidised) housing.
So when a family decides to upgrade and move into a private property, they lose their
eligibility to own their HDB flat (by virtue of the fact that they are not
staying in it anymore). Thus they should either be made to sell their flat in the open
market or failing which after a mandated period of time (e.g. 6 months after
they moved into their private property), be made to sell this back to HDB at a
predetermined price.
Similarly for the
case of those who have reached retirement age (is this still 65?) and wish to "downgrade", they should be allowed to buy a resale HDB flat or EC and be given a
mandated period (e.g. 6 months after taking ownership) to move into the public
housing. They can then rent out their private properties or sell them in the
open market.
The wife and I
reckon that this will be a more equitable approach to the whole issue at hand (and less of a double standard).
3. It now takes 6 months to sell a condo, 3 to
offload a flat!
The Straits Times
today have reported that private condominium sellers are taking nearly 6 months
to secure a sale, the longest wait in over two years. This is a far cry from
less than 3 months a year back.
Sellers of HDB
flats are also taking longer to find buyers - with a three-month wait on
average. This is up from about 60 days last year.
Property
consultants say that these long waits reflect weakened demand and upcoming
increases in total residential stock will put further pressure on sellers.
The wife and I
can only say "we told you so"! We have mentioned in several of our previous
blog-posts (and have gotten some flak for it) that the current falling market
may not be the "blessing" that many prospective buyers have deemed it
to be. It is well and good if one is sitting on a shit-load of money and
waiting to enter the market. But for "upgraders" who needs to sell their existing homes in order to garner enough financial muscles to upgrade,
they may not necessarily find it any easier to do so in the current market.
And looks like things can get a lot worse as we move into 2015...
And looks like things can get a lot worse as we move into 2015...
We must reiterate that the
above are merely our humble opinions as always and we are certainly prepared to "agree
to disagree".
So
what do you think?
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