My wife and I upgraded from our HDB flat to a condo in 2003. We paid $500k for the condo. Now we have finally fully paid the condo. We use all our bonuses to pay down as much as possible. We can finally sleep in peace because even if property prices crash, we will not be worried as we no longer have bank loans. There are many stupid people out there who thinks they are so smart and take max loan and when the market crash and the bank ask them to top up cash, they cannot and have have to force sell at at a huge loss.

Now our condo is worth $1.2m and our combined income is only $150k, we have no problem financially living in a condo even though our income is lower than a typical condo owner. Timing your property purchase is very important. Now is definitely not a good time to buy property for investment. For stay, does not matter as long as you like the property and you can afford it (you must be able to pay down payment of 50% and loan only 50%, so that if prices crash by 50%, you will still be ok even though on paper you lose your downpayment).