By Jessica Cheam, The Straits Times, 3 May 2012
NATIONAL Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan yesterday addressed two questions many had been asking regarding the size and price of Housing Board flats.
No, he said, HDB flat sizes have not shrunk in recent years.
And no, prices will not shoot up in the same way they did in the past.
He gave these assurances at a feedback forum, after participants took the chance to quiz the minister in charge of housing.
While many believe that HDB flats have been shrinking, Mr Khaw said that flat sizes have in fact remained unchanged for the past 15 years.
A four-room flat, for instance, has remained at 90 sq m since the mid-90s, HDB figures show. HDB has also said that the amount of living space per person has risen, as the number of people in an average household has dropped.
Mr Khaw said Singapore will not go the way of Hong Kong, where public home sizes are much smaller. 'I would consider that a deterioration of our quality of life and we should avoid that,' he said.
As for prices, he said flats would remain affordable, and that the current high levels would not persist.
Prices had shot up, he explained, due to a 'temporary imbalance' of demand and supply: Singapore's population had grown so rapidly in the past five years that the infrastructure could not keep up. But HDB has been pumping more units into the market, and 'there is some stabilisation', Mr Khaw said. The housing market will stabilise once this imbalance is corrected, he added, though it will take time.
'In the next five years, I'm committed to building at least 100,000 HDB flats if necessary,' he said, adding that the Government will continue to release land if needed.
One participant, consultant Lu Keehong, 55, noted that buyers who bought an HDB flat for $60,000 two decades ago could sell it for $300,000 today. Did that mean, he asked, that prices would rise five times again over the next 20 years?
Replying, Mr Khaw said that housing values had grown so much primarily because of Singapore's rapid economic growth in the past. But as it reaches maturity, ending the days of high gross domestic product (GDP) growth, the growth in property prices will likewise slow down.
He also talked about the proliferation of 'shoebox' units of 500 sq ft or less built by private developers. The Government is keeping an eye on this trend, said Mr Khaw, and if the proportion of such units becomes too high in the market, 'we may have to step in'.
*Straits Times reporter Jessica Cheam, also wrote on her facebook;
A few people have asked me if it's really true that #HDB flats have not shrunk in the past 15 years. And why it doesn't match a previous report I wrote in Nov last year on the same issue. I've doublechecked with HDB and both reports are right - Minister Khaw is accurate in saying the flat size hasn't changed in the past 15 years because the mid-90s was the last time that HDB changed flat sizes.
So, more accurately - The size of a four-room flat, for example, has been 90 sq m since the mid-90s. It was 100 sq m prior to that, and 105 sq m in the 1980s, according to HDB figures.
The table given to us by HDB in the Nov report used a more generic timeframe (1980s, 1990s, 2000s) to show the sizes over the decades.
So yes, HDB flat sizes have shrunk in the past 3 decades - but it has not shrunk over the past 15 years.
Hope this adds some clarity to the issue.
Boon Wan voices shoebox worry
By Lee U-Wen, The Business Times, 3 May 2012
The government would consider stepping in if the proportion of "shoebox" units in Singapore becomes too high, said National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan yesterday.
While he acknowledged the fact that homes being built by private developers were getting smaller, he gave the assurance that HDB flats here were not shrinking despite public belief that it was.
Mr Khaw, who was speaking at the annual Reach Contributors Forum, shared that flat sizes in Singapore have remained the same for the last 15 years.
"There has been this misunderstanding that HDB has shrunk its units in recent years. We have not," he said in response to concerns about the growing numbers of such homes and the impact that this would have on family bonding.
"We continue to build smaller units and larger units and it is the choice of the consumers. We have 1.2 million housing units and some could be of that size because there would be people who find it comfortable for their purpose instead of having a big place and finding it very hard and costly to buy and maintain," said the minister.
"But if the percentage becomes too much, we may have to step in and say, 'Are you sure there will be demand for it?'" he added.
Shoebox units - which are tiny homes of 540 square feet or less, or about the size of four HDB carpark lots - have been popular with homebuyers in recent years.
According to latest figures, shoebox apartments comprised more than a quarter of private home sales in the first quarter of this year, up sharply from about 15 per cent in the final quarter of 2011.
Mr Khaw also noted that many Singaporeans were worried about soaring home prices but he described this as a temporary imbalance of supply and demand.
He shared how, in the last five years, the country's population was increasing at a rate that infrastructure could not match, resulting in the spike in prices.
"HDB has been aggressively pumping units into the market and although Singapore is not in the steady stage yet, there is some stabilisation," said Mr Khaw.
He added that the government was committed to build at least 100,000 new flats in the next five years if necessary.
Also present at yesterday's dialogue, held at the *Scape Park at Orchard Road, were Acting Community Development, Youth and Sports Minister Chan Chun Sing and Reach chairman Amy Khor.
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