9/10/2010

What is so criminal about the Housing fiasco?

1. Young couples who been saving to buy that flat but still cannot buy because the price has gone beyond their means. 2. Because unable to get flat, put off marriage. Some ended up quarrelling and breaking off with their potential spouses. 3. Because no flat means delay in childbirth. Sometimes delay too long could lead to infertility. 4. For those who managed to get their flats, they could be made to cough out another $100k or more, which means slaving for the next 10 years all for nothing, just to pay for the flats. 5. Because of the small supply, some may have unsuccessful in too many ballotings and ended being booted out of the HDB schemes when their salaries exceeded the ceiling. 6. Some may ended up with no flats as the private flats were beyond their means. People have different commitments and responsibilities to their families and the balance of a $8k or $10k salary may be insufficient to buy private properties. 7. Those who could buy a private property could end up steep in debt because of the high loans. 8. Parents agonised over their children unable to buy HDB flats and may have to share the burden by emptying their retirement funds. 9. The pressure of getting a flat could result in many family quarrels, frictions and breakups. Of course the culprits causing all the hardship to the people would not know or not wanting to know about these consequences. All they did was telling the affected to downgrade their expectations, buy within your means. Some may be able to down grade but some can't. How could those who were planning to buy 3 rm flats downgrade further when HDB don’t even build 2 rm flats? How could those booted out from the HDB schemes and could not afford to pay for private flats downgrade to? Can’t afford private flats and HDB refuses to sell them? Isn’t that wicked? Not criminal enough? And the foreigners and new citizens walked in happily and buy direct from HDB or buying resale to jack up the price further. Good heavens, I would like to strip the pants of the jokers and give them a few strokes of the rotan.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Would the creator of the fiasco care? Definitely not.

Can they initiate or even allow a drastic decline in housing prices? Not possible. That will mean effectively wiping out the CPF savings invested in those overpriced homes and defeat the whole concept of asset enhancement, exposing a bigger fiasco.

Our housing fiasco will resemble the housing fiasco of the 'Banana Republic of America'. Impossible to fix, but will not go away.

Anonymous said...

Criminal ? Nah.
How can it be criminal when the Lawmakers are also the Planners of Public and Privatised(HUDC/NTUC Condos) Housings.

Me does think it's blooming sinful to cause all the issues You have listed. It must also be said that if villagers are not resettled, housing local born Singaporeans would never had been a problem since the Nineties. And the problem gets bigger when aliens and non-occupiers are permitted to buy into Public Housings.

Anyone with sight will be able to see for him/herself that ALL OUR VILLAGERS ARE CLEARED OUT FROM ALL THE VILLAGES(KAMPONGS), SOME OF WHICH WERE LEFT EMPTY FOR DECADES UNTIL NOW.

They had became breeding grounds for mosquitoes and sneaky humans as well as places of crimes. We know the last private held kampong at Buangkok has to give way for new development which of course is reasonable.

There was/is an intention to 'enhanced' the value of 'our' properties. However, as one can see from Beannie and other bloggers' posting, there's no value add but plenty of problems as a consequence.

To make it short, me likes to say once more criminal it is not, BUT all the plannings and manipulations are blardy blardy sinful to me as me does not see any good except negative effects.

patriot

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

Ok, Ok, the term criminal is just an expression of deep disgust, a figurative use of the word, just like burn. Oh, when I say use the rotan to cane them, it does not mean that I will physically do it. Just an expression lah.

Public housing for foreigners or short term citizens to speculate. And who ended up paying exhorbitant prices and holding the babies for 30 years?

Remember, the money made by the speculators are from our own children. Impovertised them to feed the greed of a few.

I suspect the American housing fiasco was through good advice from us. The only thing they forgot is that we could depend on the savings in the CPF to bridge the gap. So that got hit ad the first sign of trouble.

We too will be hit once the CPF is depleted. It has already emptied the retirement fund of the account holders. with most of the money absorbed by housing, nothing much is left for retirement.

Anonymous said...

Don't believe it when SM Goh acknowledged “that the surge of immigrants in 2007 and 2008 caught the Government by surprise.”

The Government was fully aware that the prices of property would rise when it opened the doors to migrants. They also deliberately built fewer flats to keep the prices high. The present policies will not do much to lower the prices.

Why do they want property prices to be high?

The main reason is that with one master stroke, they have solved the problem of the aging population. When people go old and are unable to support themselves, the Government will "persuade" them to use their property to support themselves. This can be done by down-grading, selling the property and renting or by reverse mortgages. 80% of Singaporeans own property so the bulk of the problem has been solved. Do not underestimate the problem of an aging population. This is the BIGGEST problem facing developed countries e.g Japan. I believe the Australian Government spends about 100 billion a year on pensions,old age homes, hospitals etc.

The other reason is that the bulk of the population, contrary to what you may read on the internet, are very happy that their property has risen in price. Using logic, why should people be unhappy that their main asset is becoming more valuable. This will assure the Government a comfortable win in the next General Election. I predict that they will be able to keep their 60+% of the votes.

The writers who predict a drop in the Government's votes are in fact practising wishful thinking. Have any of them tried to persuade a pro-Government voter to vote for the opposition? It will be pretty hard going when the person has a steady job and has assets which are appreciating all the time. The only ones who will vote for the opposition are non-property owning citizens (mainly young) or the unemployed. If you study the statistics, they are in the minority and do not pose much of a threat.

Expect another PAP sweeping victory and you will not end up disappointed.