Amid Singapore’s reopening boom, city’s vaunted ‘affordable public housing’ leaves citizens feeling priced out
- Home affordability a key gripe among Singaporeans, with some in limbo after government imposed cooling measures to ease red-hot property market
- Measures expect to dampen demand and help keep public housing affordable, cool the private residential market, analysts note
Singapore’s recent policy tweak to taper demand in its sizzling public housing resale market has left some of its citizens feeling troubled.
Some middle-class Singaporeans had sold their private properties at a lucrative profit, with the aim of downsizing to a public housing flat – only to find out they couldn’t.
This means the so-called downgraders would have to hunt for an alternative place to put up during that period, either by renting or staying with their relatives.
But property agents said not all who were affected had the intention of profiteering off the red-hot property market.
Clarence Foo, senior associate division director at Propnex Realty, said some elderly were just “getting cash out so they have money for retirement”.
“The older people don’t make money from doing this,” he said.
The new rules do not apply to people aged 55 and above seeking to downgrade to a three-bedroom or smaller resale flat, but Foo suggested others might not be so fortunate.