What is the actual cost of a HDB flat?

[CreaXion]

Interesting analysis from a different vantage point. By the way, do u know how much was being spent on ioc and imf? It was quite a fair bit actually and it is great to know that the govt is gunning the country's status to a higher platform. Well at least we know where our gst and erp were channelled to for once.

Back on hdb costing. Any developer can estimate the actual value vs market value. The fluctuations are all relative to market buying power. When sales activities are low, the media will step in to excite the market movements with certain hypes.

The development of new hdb had already reached its saturation point a few years back. The number of quitters, the fewer babies born & the migration of local talents are just some consequences of the soon to be empty nest. With fewer buyers, now they launch themselves onto a higher plane and compete with private developers.

At some point, it does not matter if we have an expensive home or not. We should worry more if we still have a country called our home when Singaporeans are out-numbered.

Home sweet home.

The price of HDB is unlikely to be high anymore unless runaway inflation comes in. If I remember correctly, one of the mission of HDB is to provide affordable housing to every individual in Singapore. Hence, in line with their mission, they have to come up with policies to control the price and I must say they are damn bloody successful sia. Look at the price I got my flat and the price I sell:sweat: The price I sell is indicative of how successful their policy is.

I am not very gd with figures but my gut feelings is that HDB flats are still in demand. It is just that they are trying to clear their excess stocks:bsmilie: . Plus, Condos has become more affordable due to various policies.

 

[CreaXion]

in the past, if you cant pay the hdb loan, you dont get kick out.

now loan is from bank, you cant pay, you get kick in your butt.

saw it in the newspaper recently, but they had it printed as small and as un-noticable as possible.

I hope I dun land in that kind of situation :sweat: but let's look at it this way. HDB by allowing pte sector to come in means that the bank would have a share in the profit. When banks get profit, money is being rolled into the market. Money roll money. Who benefits? The pp because basically the world economy is affected by Banking, Insurance, Oil.

 

[zcf]

I hope I dun land in that kind of situation :sweat: but let's look at it this way. HDB by allowing pte sector to come in means that the bank would have a share in the profit. When banks get profit, money is being rolled into the market. Money roll money. Who benefits? The pp because basically the world economy is affected by Banking, Insurance, Oil.

correct, money roll money, but too bad that it roll into the wealthy people pocket instead of normal public
Also, can't compare to Tokyo/Hong Kong etc on housing price, their density is much higher than Singapore, and their earning/living expenses are higher than Singapore.

 

[dDarkroom]

worry not about HDB price for it is heavily, heavily, heavily subsidised as compare to building your own attap house.

 

[CreaXion]

correct, money roll money, but too bad that it roll into the wealthy people pocket instead of normal public
Also, can't compare to Tokyo/Hong Kong etc on housing price, their density is much higher than Singapore, and their earning/living expenses are higher than Singapore.

True and not true. It is double edged sword. Bank loan money to biz pp. Biz pp open shop. Shop opened mean jobs created. Money comes back to pp. However, I do agree that a larger portion of it landed in rich pp's pocket.

I know Hong Kong is ex in housing but cheap on food. Tokyo is not the case. Tokyo is ex in everything. My father's ex boss who is a jap is so scared of being send bk to Tokyo because he would be struggling due to high expenditure, small housing. Pay may be high but everything also high.

 

[CreaXion]

worry not about HDB price for it is heavily, heavily, heavily subsidised as compare to building your own attap house.

Expats are suffering more. I just heard that for lift upgrading, Singaporeans will pay abt 1000+ to 3000+. Expat has to pay 20+ K. See the diff.

 

[CreaXion]

True and not true. It is double edged sword. Bank loan money to biz pp. Biz pp open shop. Shop opened mean jobs created. Money comes back to pp. However, I do agree that a larger portion of it landed in rich pp's pocket.

I know Hong Kong is ex in housing but cheap on food. Tokyo is not the case. Tokyo is ex in everything. My father's ex boss who is a jap is so scared of being send bk to Tokyo because he would be struggling due to high expenditure, small housing. Pay may be high but everything also high.

Thought of another scenario. Bank got money. Money loaned to pp buying houses. Houses price goes up. Price go up, construction companies build more houses. Build more houses mean need more pp to work. PP work got money.

 

[dDarkroom]

Expats are suffering more. I just heard that for lift upgrading, Singaporeans will pay abt 1000+ to 3000+. Expat has to pay 20+ K. See the diff.

expat stays in HDB :think: you mean those foreign construction workers ah

 

[CreaXion]

expat stays in HDB :think: you mean those foreign construction workers ah

Not very sure. If I am correct from China. Working as what I dun know. Do u know that some China and India professionals are paid very little? The one i heard quickly move house on hearing how much he is paying.

 

[dDarkroom]

Not very sure. If I am correct from China. Working as what I dun know. Do u know that some China and India professionals are paid very little? The one i heard quickly move house on hearing how much he is paying.

oic, forget that i do rent out my hdb apartment to an india software engineer.

 

[jacob]

here's my thot.

you buy a flat. you stayed. when u retire you need to sell back the flat in order to get some money out due to cpf capping($120K in a few years time). many years down the road, cpf capping will probably go up again(the last hike a few years ago at $80k). expect to hike more than $200k by the time u retire......many many years down the road.

so by calculation,....... in the end of the day,....... you don't have any money. probably no money to stay in old folks home. so how?

 

[shojibake]

Thought of another scenario. Bank got money. Money loaned to pp buying houses. Houses price goes up. Price go up, construction companies build more houses. Build more houses mean need more pp to work. PP work got money.

Actually it's more like this. People work. People got money. Bank says i can make your money grow by a certain amount. People give bank money. Money loaned to ppl to buy houses. Everyone says economy is picking up. Prices go up. Banks become more optimistic. Loan rate changes. Ppl lose jobs because in reality the economy isn't that great. Ppl no money, take from bank account. Ppl really no money.

 

[Parchiao]

If HDB continues to sell apartments at prices like what we had in the early 80s, most Singaporeans will not have to work as hard to pay off their debts cause there is not much to pay off. Competitiveness then theoretically drops. Raise the prices of HDB apartments and many people and their family in that generation who bought low and sold high benefitted. Price of private properties rises in line with public housing, which means benefits extend beyond HDB apartment sellers. The burden of high property prices is then passed on to the next generation. Singaporeans will have to work harder to pay off their property loans. In the midst of all this, most fail to see that higher prices for new properties effectively means that costs of new HDB apartments can now incorporate an element for raising money to fund for redevelopment i.e. en-bloc, upgrading etc. Like ERP, the costs are passed back to the consumer. A system that generates money by itself to fund for further activities of like. The percentage of this allocation is of course not known. Anyone wants to be an MP needs to know how to come up with schemes like these! Anyway, Singaporeans react. Couples deem it necessary for both parties to work, and with less time and other resources to build up a family, they have less children too. With too few babies born a year to replace aeging population, Government react. Immigration rules are changed to allow more foreigners to become permanent residents or citizens. This results in more visible competition, supposedly good for the new generation of "lazy and domiciled" Singaporeans. Singaporeans react. We marry later. The vicious cycle continues, and should continue, unless positive reaction is taken by Singaporeans or the government.

Note. Very simplistic opinion, but I don't think I am far off the mark. I belong to a generation who is forced to bear a heavy burden.

 

[Static]

To be on the fair side, think abt it in this way.

1. Pp who lived in developed countries in the city areas like Japan is even worse. Take Tokyo for example. The common pp are staying in houses that are much smaller and much more expensive. That is why Japan expats love to stay in Singapore.

2. Govt has tried ways and means of controlling price of HDB. Before 1997 or 8, the price of the HDB flats are ridiculous. Govt in order to prevent prices from spiraling out of control due to speculative purposes, introduced measures to curb speculation. Since then prices has been more or less quite stable or lesser. That is why I suffered a big loss. Jialat

3. Some pp argue that Govt has to earn money from pp to sustain the ministers pay. Think of it in this way. Singapore Ministers and high officials has high pay so dun need to be corrupt. Other countries (dun need to mention what countries hah) low pay so corruption exist. Biz men who came in from overseas to Singapore know exact cost. Can calculate cut loss pt or expenditure. Biz men go other countries lost money also dunno why die.

4. Some pp also say why ministers must have high pay. They are serving the pp. Difference of opinions. I actually supports the view that ministers shd get pay like CEO. Afterall, Singapore is like a big MNC. Singapore if I am correct is the top 20 richest country in the world. That itself is a super big achievement considering the size of Singapore and lack of natural resources.

5. Revenue generated from sale of hdb flats is to generate more money for the economy. More money means money can be used to support functions like IMF mtgs to raise reputation of Singapore. Reputation improve means more investments in. More investments in means more job. Part of economics leh. BTW this is just one eg only.

Last thing is a disclaimer cause my whole yr is till very much lesser than a minister pay.

:sweatsm:

Another school of thought

1) Using jap as an example. You may like to know the difference between the pay structure of an ordinary jap engineer in S'pore & in Japan ? Cost of housing isn't the reason why they :heart: living in S'pore. I knowof one Jap Semi-con company provides free housing for their Jap expats working here, best part is the S'pore branch is footing the bills. (Condos in tanglin area)
I ever conversed with the jap engineers b4, they complained working environment is more stressful, pay is lower and lesser benefits than in S'pore.

2) Are u refering to resale prices ? Anyway, economic crisis caused the prices to purged in 1997...

3) Not trying to insinuate anything, but if u r using MNC as an analogy to support ur statement, then can I state it this way... hmmm I never came across a businessman who is contented with the profit he is making. Nor there is a colour whiter than white

4) Bill Gates earns billions from ppl. He is also giving billions to back to society :thumbsup:

5) I am not so sure if retailers in Suntec made any profit during IMF.. Who cares, its over. :bsmilie:
IMHO, any profit made by HDB should circulate with the housing sector instead of making poor folks pay for upgrading stuff.

Juz my 2 cents ! Not to flame or fame here !

Whoosss .... :hearts: I m out of this thread

 

[VR Man]

Thought of another scenario. Bank got money. Money loaned to pp buying houses. Houses price goes up. Price go up, construction companies build more houses. Build more houses mean need more pp to work. PP work got money.

PP == majority are foreign construction workers

minority are Singaporeans and PR, so how :dunno:

 

[Teo]

How much it costs is not important. What is important is how much people are willing to pay. From resale transactions, one can see that people are willing to pay up to $500k for a 5-room flat in Marine Parade.

So how?

Whether it costs HDB $1 or $10 or $100,000 to build the flat is not important. In fact, it could be argued that if the resale market price is $400k, it would be unfair for HDB to sell it at $200k even if that is the cost of the flat. Why? Because only one person gains, and that's the guy who got balloted for the flat.

By selling it close to $400k (say $300-350k), at least the money goes to HDB to help it build more flats in future. And yet, the flat owner still enjoys a "subsidy" which is really a discount from the market price.

Well, if a unit sell for $500K and the particular block is having 24 stories with 4 units each level. Simple calculations : $500K x 4 x 24 = $48 million for a block of flat which only last for 99 years?? vs the actual materail cost...wow big profit man... .. and how much land area can a point block occupy?

So you know who is the richest developer here?
Check it out our neighbouring country with S$500K, you living in big big landed property..

Not to foget, lets say for a average salary man to buy a 5-rm flat using 25 years loan from your CPF...do you still get to see $$ in you CPF when you retire?

 

[melvin]

i also dunno leh... :bsmilie::bsmilie: got staircase one...

staircase in ur flat?

 

[CreaXion]

It was the pp that wants to upgrade their flats. That is why the govt dangles the carrot during election.

 

[deadpixel]

Not to foget, lets say for a average salary man to buy a 5-rm flat using 25 years loan from your CPF...do you still get to see $$ in you CPF when you retire?

That's why you need financial planning. Before you buy a HDB flat, make sure you move everything, except for the minimum sum required for purchase, out from your CPF account to approved CPF investment funds. That way, you will not empty your CPF savings onto something that will not give you any returns. Investment funds will payback more in the long run.

I did just that and over a period of 4 years, the investment funds have returned approximately 13% - 14% per year. Compare this to CPF's returns of 2.5% per year. :cry:

_

 

[melvin]

in the past, if you cant pay the hdb loan, you dont get kick out.

now loan is from bank, you cant pay, you get kick in your butt.

saw it in the newspaper recently, but they had it printed as small and as un-noticable as possible.

Nowadays also nt easy to gt HDB LOAN!!!:sweat:
From 1 jan 2007 onwards (like wif immediate effect) applying of HDB loan would be the same procedure as applying for bank loan.

HDB will require all potential flat buyers and transferees who wish to get an HDB concessionary loan to first obtain an HDB Loan Eligibility (HLE) letter. This HLE letter must be obtained before committing to the purchase or transfer of a flat. This will provide prior information on your loan eligibility quantum and monthly instalment to ensure you are able to pay for your home and service the loan without overstretching your finances.


The HDB Loan Eligibility Letter (HLE) will give an indication of the loan you are eligible for but the final or NET loan that is given will depend on HDB's prevailing conditions governing the granting of loans such as the loan ceiling of 90% of selling price or value of the flat, and the amount of CPF in your ordinary account.


HDB will work out the financial plan for your net loan at the point of (a) selecting a new flat for purchase of a new flat, (b) first appointment for purchase of a resale flat or (c) processing your application for transfer of an existing flat. You can also use the online services at Sales Financial Plan and Resale Financial Plan to do an estimate of the final or NET loan amount once you have determined your loan eligibility.