well ... the alternative would be the goverment let you go tikam
and the one sized flat you get would be your lot till you die or
upgrade to private housing ?
and I don't think COVs are a speculator's thing, since you can
only own one HDB at a time, and must live in it for 5 years before
flipping it. And remember, during the property market doldrums,
people's gripes were, ironically, about the low prices then.
Imagine you're a 5 room flat owner right now, who bought your
place years ago, and reared your children there, now that your
children's grown up and fled the nest, you decide to cash out and
flip the flat for a smaller unit that's easier to clean and use the
money to travel around the world. And the market falls out from
beneath your feet because premiums are outlawed, or prices are
artificially capped, what happens ?
like I said, public housing in singapore has to operate within
the free market context because they constitute 80% of the housing
supply. Looking at the public tenements and micro condos of hong
kong, I'm convinced that things would be a lot worse if the HDB
weren't around.
Mind you, I'm not saying this only cos I got my BTO and am
happy; I was pretty impressed when I went through my CEHA and
agents training and have to plough through what the HDB have done.
Every other clause was "Singapore Citizens only". Could they have
done a better job in the past couple of years managing the property
market ? yes they could have. Are they doing something about it,
within the context of the free market ? yes they are. Could it have
been worse otherwise ? Absolutely.
If I didn't have to buy my place at a highly inflated price with
COVs in the first place, this wouldn't even be an issue. You're
essentially saying that bad practices need to continue because
they've already started a negative spiral with regards to profit
making and nobody wants to lose out.
