Be thankful that you can still afford HDB

[phantom_opera]

More than a third of Italian men over the age of 30 live at home with their parents, a phenomenon blamed on sky-high apartment rents and bleak job prospects as much as a liking for mamma's cooking.

'Renting an apartment 30 years ago cost a quarter of the salary of a worker,' writer Aldo Nove who has penned a book called 'My Name is Roberta, I'm 40 years old and earn 250 euros a month', told Corriere della Sera newspaper.

'Today, it costs more than the salary of a young apprentice. What else is there to say?

- Italy

[dtrax]

More than a third of Italian men over the age of 30 live at home with their parents, a phenomenon blamed on sky-high apartment rents and bleak job prospects as much as a liking for mamma's cooking.

'Renting an apartment 30 years ago cost a quarter of the salary of a worker,' writer Aldo Nove who has penned a book called 'My Name is Roberta, I'm 40 years old and earn 250 euros a month', told Corriere della Sera newspaper.

'Today, it costs more than the salary of a young apprentice. What else is there to say?

- Italy

What more can I say? Thank you Singapore for everything

[thomastansb]

Good and bad la. More good than bad is good enough for me. Food and housing are really basic needs.

[hyenergix]

Singapore will still be okay in e next few years. Inflation at ur neighboring countries r worse for the locals. Their cost competitive advantages shd wear off in 5-10 years, just like e coastal cities in China tt r no longer cheap compare to 10 years ago.

[hyenergix]

HDB shd have been made cheaper n more easily available for citizens so tt e younger generation can set up their families more easily m have more time for families. The poor policies at HDB have screwed Singapore up, n e impact will still b felt 1-2 decades later.

[samuelk]

with so much spare resource. I am sure farrari can now be mass produce cheaper with so much man power...

[danguard]

More than a third of Italian men over the age of 30 live at home with their parents, a phenomenon blamed on sky-high apartment rents and bleak job prospects as much as a liking for mamma's cooking.

'Renting an apartment 30 years ago cost a quarter of the salary of a worker,' writer Aldo Nove who has penned a book called 'My Name is Roberta, I'm 40 years old and earn 250 euros a month', told Corriere della Sera newspaper.

'Today, it costs more than the salary of a young apprentice. What else is there to say?

- Italy

some words of truth in this

[Matador]

Yes, be very thankful that only in Singapore can a Minister make a sweeping statement that HDB is losing millions and MOF has to subsidise HDB every year because of these losses.

Without having to substantiate such claims!! Without a breakdown!!

When land is sold to private developers, how much profit goes into the state coffers? Is that also loss making?

How on earth are Singaporeans convinced that HDB is losing millions when we don’t know the actual cost of building a HDB flat in the first place?

Yes, be very thankful that there is no transparency and accountability in Singapore.

[irisng]

Yes, be very thankful that only in Singapore can a Minister make a sweeping statement that HDB is losing millions and MOF has to subsidise HDB every year because of these losses.

This reminds me of my friend's boss. Keep telling the staff that the company did not make money, so no increment and yet the directors' one after another change cars.

[phantom_opera]

obviously some Singaporeans think land should be totally free for them

in Europe now u will be lucky to have a job

[teddybear]

The reverse is true, the govt bought the land from me almost free! Imagine bought from me at S$0.60 psf of land under so-called national development, now selling >$500 psf ppr!
Bloody hell! I am subsidizing these people who are still complaining HDB BTO too expensive? If not govt bought at S$0.60 psf of land from people like us, they will probably have to pay $500 psf ppr for their area space under their HDB!

obviously some Singaporeans think land should be totally free for them

in Europe now u will be lucky to have a job

[minority]

Oh really? Buy from u a swamp. What abt the infra put into the area? Talk cock again.

[teddybear]

People like you are the scambags that benefited from people like us!
We know how the system works, and I am owning lots of land when you are not even born, you idiot!

Oh really? Buy from u a swamp. What abt the infra put into the area? Talk cock again.

[hopeful]

People like you are the scambags that benefited from people like us!
We know how the system works, and I am owning lots of land when you are not even born, you idiot!

politicians never tell us how they are going to achieve their goals.
if lky and gang have mentioned that they are going to seize the richies' land when they are campaigning, they themselves would be accused of being socialists/communists and they would a lot of headwind from the rich families. but once they seized the levers of government, they can do anything according to the law, just the nazi germany, which pass laws to enable to do what they want.

I guess the rich supporters of pap in 1950-60s are like the jews who donated to the nazi party in the 1920s-30s, ie kena betrayed by the party to whom they donated and helped.

[leesg123]

The reverse is true, the govt bought the land from me almost free! Imagine bought from me at S$0.60 psf of land under so-called national development, now selling >$500 psf ppr!
Bloody hell! I am subsidizing these people who are still complaining HDB BTO too expensive? If not govt bought at S$0.60 psf of land from people like us, they will probably have to pay $500 psf ppr for their area space under their HDB!

Thank you for contributing to nation building and benefitting us!

[teddybear]

Ya right! They are very good in packaging it in a nice name of national development!

politicians never tell us how they are going to achieve their goals.
if lky and gang have mentioned that they are going to seize the richies' land when they are campaigning, they themselves would be accused of being socialists/communists and they would a lot of headwind from the rich families. but once they seized the levers of government, they can do anything according to the law, just the nazi germany, which pass laws to enable to do what they want.

I guess the rich supporters of pap in 1950-60s are like the jews who donated to the nazi party in the 1920s-30s, ie kena betrayed by the party to whom they donated and helped.

[phantom_opera]

nothing wrong with garmen making money from selling hdbs as long as profit goes into national development instead of pockets of corrupted officials, do take note that part of profit goes to lower income families in terms of grants, of course ministers get paid millions too

if anything construction cost for hdb is 150psf so 1000sqft hdb already 150k at cost even if land is free

if immigration floodgate opens 300m Chinese and 300m Indians will want to become SCs to buy HDBs

[hopeful]

....
if immigration floodgate opens 300m Chinese and 300m Indians will want to become SCs to buy HDBs

why you dont mentioned indonesians/malays? ok maybe no 300m, but you could have mentioned 75m indonesians/malays.

hmm, cartoonist is right. tfr for malay higher, yet percentage goes down.
guess malays are bottom rung for desirability.

[teddybear]

It is ok, we are very flexible, we will continue to stay up there, but we do it the righteous way.

However, the mention of those scambags who benefited from us and still arguing rubbish makes me boil.

Imagine, buy $0.60 psf of land.
They sell $500 psf ppr, nowsadays plot ratio mostly 3.0, so in actual fact is they are selling at $1,500 psf of land!
Wow! The profit is 1500/0.6 = 250,000.00 % !!!
If they didn't get from us almost free then what is it?

Thank you for contributing to nation building and benefitting us!

Originally Posted by teddybear
The reverse is true, the govt bought the land from me almost free! Imagine bought from me at S$0.60 psf of land under so-called national development, now selling >$500 psf ppr!
Bloody hell! I am subsidizing these people who are still complaining HDB BTO too expensive? If not govt bought at S$0.60 psf of land from people like us, they will probably have to pay $500 psf ppr for their area space under their HDB!

[Matador]

But the point is that a few days ago Khaw just said HDB losing millions every year!! So HDB flats are heavily subsidised. Is that believable, or is the govt thinking that Singaporeans are ignorant?

Note: he did not say HDB making money, and the money used to help the low income. He said HDB very jialak, always losing money!!

Singapore Ministers are still the highest paid in the world. So obviously profits from land and COE and what not goes into their pockets. Legitimately, of course. You can legitimise everything. Even a legal firm can be legitimised to do HDB transactions. Even a govt town council can be legitimised to give business to a PAP-owned company with $20 paid up capital, but handling a project worth millions.

nothing wrong with garmen making money from selling hdbs as long as profit goes into national development instead of pockets of corrupted officials, do take note that part of profit goes to lower income families in terms of grants, of course ministers get paid millions too

if anything construction cost for hdb is 150psf so 1000sqft hdb already 150k at cost even if land is free

if immigration floodgate opens 300m Chinese and 300m Indians will want to become SCs to buy HDBs

[Matador]

Quoting from one analyst, who appears to be making sense:


According to Khaw Boon Wan, the annual losses over the last few years were about a billion, ie every year but not sure how many years he was referring to, no matter how many flats were built. So, how much is HDB losing for every flat that it sold? And how much will HDB be losing if the population increases to 6.9m? At 6.9, HDB will need to build another 400,000units to house the increase of 1.6m people at 4 person per flat.

Taking a best case scenario to do a rough calculation, the building of 50,000 units under Boon Wan, and using his annual $1b loss, HDB should incur a loss of $20,000 for every unit sold. Tiok boh? If $1b is the loss when only 10,000 units were sold, then the loss per unit should be $100,000.

To build another 400,000 units, the loss could be in the region of $8b to $40b depending on which number one is using. This is a serious amount to lose and a big sum to save if the population is not increased and there is no need to build the 400,000 units of flats. Would it be prudent and make more economic sense not to increase the population to incur more losses? But this is not all. Boon Wan is trying to bring down the prices of HDB flats from an average of 5.5 years of the buyers annual income to 4 years. This would definitely add to the losses that HDB would have to incur. It is terribly worrying as to where the Govt is going to find the money to subsidise these losses. Yes, this is a lot of money and it must come from somewhere and someone would have to pay for it.

[august]

Quoting from one analyst, who appears to be making sense:


According to Khaw Boon Wan, the annual losses over the last few years were about a billion, ie every year but not sure how many years he was referring to, no matter how many flats were built. So, how much is HDB losing for every flat that it sold? And how much will HDB be losing if the population increases to 6.9m? At 6.9, HDB will need to build another 400,000units to house the increase of 1.6m people at 4 person per flat.

Taking a best case scenario to do a rough calculation, the building of 50,000 units under Boon Wan, and using his annual $1b loss, HDB should incur a loss of $20,000 for every unit sold. Tiok boh? If $1b is the loss when only 10,000 units were sold, then the loss per unit should be $100,000.

To build another 400,000 units, the loss could be in the region of $8b to $40b depending on which number one is using. This is a serious amount to lose and a big sum to save if the population is not increased and there is no need to build the 400,000 units of flats. Would it be prudent and make more economic sense not to increase the population to incur more losses? But this is not all. Boon Wan is trying to bring down the prices of HDB flats from an average of 5.5 years of the buyers annual income to 4 years. This would definitely add to the losses that HDB would have to incur. It is terribly worrying as to where the Govt is going to find the money to subsidise these losses. Yes, this is a lot of money and it must come from somewhere and someone would have to pay for it.

u call that making sense? lol

[Matador]

I'm so sorryif you don't get it. To sum up and make it easier to understand, Khaw is bullshitting and trying to hoodwink people when he claims that HDB, the MOF, and basically, the govt, are losing money from building and selling HDB flats.

SLA (Singapore Land Authority) may be selling land to HDB at market rate, causing HDB to lose hundreds of millions of dollars for selling its flats. However, SLA is certainly making much more from the land sale to HDB. Hence, if one were to put SLA and HDB together, overall, the Govt would still be making money and this money would go to the State’s reserves. How do we know this? This came directly from the mouth of previous National Development Minister, Mah Bow Tan, 2 years ago just before the 2011 GE. His admission is in public domain.

u call that making sense? lol

[indomie]

It is ok, we are very flexible, we will continue to stay up there, but we do it the righteous way.

However, the mention of those scambags who benefited from us and still arguing rubbish makes me boil.

Imagine, buy $0.60 psf of land.
They sell $500 psf ppr, nowsadays plot ratio mostly 3.0, so in actual fact is they are selling at $1,500 psf of land!
Wow! The profit is 1500/0.6 = 250,000.00 % !!!
If they didn't get from us almost free then what is it?




Originally Posted by teddybear
The reverse is true, the govt bought the land from me almost free! Imagine bought from me at S$0.60 psf of land under so-called national development, now selling >$500 psf ppr!
Bloody hell! I am subsidizing these people who are still complaining HDB BTO too expensive? If not govt bought at S$0.60 psf of land from people like us, they will probably have to pay $500 psf ppr for their area space under their HDB!

Your logic is flawed. The fact that the land price is high now, has nothing to do with how low that u sold it in the first place. Many land in the Malaysia or Indonesia costing 1 dollar a square feet now. But nobody will pay for it if u have to take a helicopter to go there. Its the development that is expensive. Its the. Software that is expensive, not the hardware. Its the people that live on the land that are able to earn a living that make the land is expensive.

[hopeful]

teddy ancestors didnt volunteer to sell it for $0.60. The govt take it legally and compensate it for a pittance. it is compulsary acquisition. teddy use wrong choice of words.

[teddybear]

Excuse me! This is not a logic! I am stating the fact!

Your logic is flawed. The fact that the land price is high now, has nothing to do with how low that u sold it in the first place. Many land in the Malaysia or Indonesia costing 1 dollar a square feet now. But nobody will pay for it if u have to take a helicopter to go there. Its the development that is expensive. Its the. Software that is expensive, not the hardware. Its the people that live on the land that are able to earn a living that make the land is expensive.

[teddybear]

Yes! We don't want to sell but was forced to sell our lands to government in the nice name of national development.

teddy ancestors didnt volunteer to sell it for $0.60. The govt take it legally and compensate it for a pittance. it is compulsary acquisition. teddy use wrong choice of words.

[proud owner]

Yes! We don't want to sell but was forced to sell our lands to government in the nice name of national development.

my friend"s grand father was forced to sell his land ...from behind King albert park ...all the way to the hill top florist along clementi ....

govt then said to develop a container park .... today ...its still a forest ...

[Matador]

Final post on this thread, which is after all about being thankful for having a roof over our heads. Yes we indeed should be thankful for living fairly comfortably. But we musn't forget the price of progress.

- people forced to resettle at a pittance, giving up land of their ancestors
- forced to stay in HDB (who's to say that HDB living is better than kampong? Many beg to differ. . . . )
- forced abortions because of 2-child policy
- forced to flee the country because of conflicts with Men-in-White
- the list goes on . . .

If we feel comfortable and well-off, that's great. But just spare a thought for the price that had to be paid and the lack of soul. Surely life is not only about comfort and well-being . . . if so, then there would be no likes of Nelson Mandela and closer to home, JBJ who fought like a tiger and died a pauper.

[indomie]

my friend"s grand father was forced to sell his land ...from behind King albert park ...all the way to the hill top florist along clementi ....

govt then said to develop a container park .... today ...its still a forest ...

Surely if only he used the money right away to buy other smaller piece of land, he won't be worse off. But who would have known today's price can be so high. If we can tell the future, there won't be any beggar.