Hanging a millstone around your neck

With property prices going higher and higher, with a 4 rm design and build HDB flat going for $500k and above, the loan portion of the transaction is certainly going to be bigger. Other than those upgraders, a new buyer is going to borrow in the region of $300k or more. Then there are the private property buyers when the loan can be half a million or several millions. But that is a market where the players are very well off and is not an issue. Back to the small people's market when a young couple starting life could be settled with a huge loan to service. Touch wood that everything goes smoothly, and the job and the high pay, and the higher pay expected down the line will be there, it is still affordable. What if, the job is not there, what if the plans are derailed, it is not easy to service that kind of loan. Thrift and frugal living are good virtues to live by. Do not over commit. But not many are giving such advices anymore. And the property developers will keep urging people to commit, it is cheap, can't get it cheaper, good buy. The sales pitch is irresistible. Who does not want to live well? And our system is designed as such. You want to live well, you are welcomed. Prepare to pay like well. There is no turning back once committed. With so much money committed to housing, to car and transportation, and education and medical, there is no savings and no safety lines available except rich parents or family fortunes. Many will be hanged by the millstones around their necks if things do not work as planned. An economic slow down, a crisis, and all will end in big debt. The good living will be gone with the wind as fast as the wind blows.