Minister of State for Manpower and National
Development Tan Chuan-Jin on Friday evening took to Facebook to
clarify the comment made by Deputy Prime Minister
Tharman Shanmugaratnam in Parliament on Thursday.
In a Facebook note titled "Earn $1,000 a month
and you want to buy a flat?!", Tan intended to clarify and break
down the process that permits a household that earns a combined
monthly income of $1,000 to purchase a two-room Housing and Development Board (HDB)
flat.
Taking the example of a two-room Build-to-Order (BTO) flat in Fernvale Lea
in Sengkang, that was offered in January this year, Tan took its
selling price of $100,000, from a price range of between $83,000
and $112,000.
He said first-time applicants who earn $1,000 in
combined monthly income qualify for the Additional CPF Housing
Grant of up to $40,000, as well as the Special CPF Housing Grant of
up to $20,000, which can be used for the down payment for the flat
purchase. This will amount to offsetting $60,000 from the selling
price.
With a loan from HDB for the remaining $40,000, Tan
demonstrated the repayment as follows:
He pointed out that for an income earner with a $1,000
monthly salary, he has $217 contributed monthly to his CPF Ordinary
Account, which means that his monthly cash outlay will be $0.
"This support for families enable them to move from
rental to owning their own homes," said Tan, who added that rentals
for families with total monthly incomes of $1,000 come up to
between $90 and $123 for a one-room, and between $123 and $165
monthly for a two-room flat.
Beyond that, Tan wrote that 4,300 two-room BTO flats
that have been reserved for families that earn less than $2,000 per
month were built since 2006, with more to come this year. He
described the situation as "manageable", adding that the Ministry
of National Development (MND) is increasing its building of rental
flats, so that by this year there will be about 50,000 of them,
cutting down waiting time for a rental flat from 21 to eight
months.
