Wow 70k+ of condo units coming to market. This is equivalent of roughly 1.5 times of Ang Mo Kio estate(= 48k household), eyeing on that suburban condo launch in sengkang... better wait it out...

if you continue to wait, you will never be able to afford a roof. housing prices have gone up at a much faster rate than income growth. by the time you give up waiting, prices will have doubled again.

My wife and i earn combined 9k a month，kinda of stretched to buy decent size 3 room condo at 1.1m at sengkang. thinking of buying bto flat at 350k or should i wait for private property to crash by 30% by 2015?

Bro,
I would share my reading of the property market with you. Currently, most people is in agreement that property prices have sky-rocketed way beyond fundamentals and logic (save for the greedy property developers and agents who would advise the contrary for obvious reasons).

Basic Economics 101 tells you prices are a function of demand and supply.

If you look at the supply side of property market, yes there are tons of houses in the supply pipelines going to be completed in the next 2-3 years. But if you look at the demand side, it is still going strong. Singapore is a relatively small market due to the small resident population size, but demand is holding up strongly for the past couple of years due to the influx of foreigners, and by this, I dont just mean those living and working here, but includes the cash rich ones living overseas who are snapping up houses here as investment vehicles, holiday homes, houses for children and simply money laundering. There is no restiction on foreigners' purchase of property properties, and greedy developers love to sell houses to this segment, as they could achieve much higher psf prices. In the latest reports, foreign buyers make up one third of all private property purchases. The figure is even higher if you just look at mass market condominiums sales.

So the bottom line: as long as the PAP government refuses to rein in demand by cash rich foreigners through implementing purchase restrictions, prices are unlikely to come down by much, even if it do so. Judging by the government record of always welcoming foreigners with red carpet, it is almost impossible for it to impose restrictions, even though this is coming at the expense of local Singaporean buyers.

If you are really hard up for condominiums like the majority of ignorant Singaporeans, then I would advise that you bite the bullet now as prices are unlikely to crash, I repeat, unlikely.

Now turning to your financing means, it really appears to be a stretch for you to purchase a ridiculously priced $1.1M mass market condominium. Based on your monthly household income of 9k, just assuming you take up 80% mortage financing at 2% interest rate over 30 years would mean a debt servicing ratio of 37%, which is really high and financially imprudent. Basically out of every $1 of your income, 40 cents go towards paying for the housing loan. (And this is assuming both you and your wife must be working all the time, without making provisions for illness, retrenchments or simply, your wife needs to stop working to look after the kids, if you have)

Alot of Singaporean buyers now simply throw caution to the wind when purchasing properties, much to the delight of property developers. A recent MAS report reveals that most Singaporean households have mortage debt servicing ratios of 38%, which are really highly leveraged levels. Even without any property market downturn, if anyone in this group loses his job, he is in serious trouble as debt servicing ratio of this level would not allow him to be out of job and go without income for even 1 month

I would imagine you do not want to join the party.....so my advice is go for the relatively cheaper HDB flat and get to sleep well at night.....

Relying on foreigners to maintain prices is too risky. No matter how short-sighted this government is, I don't think it's _that_ incompetent not to realize this simple fact.

The consequences of letting foreigners continue to maintain or even push up prices is extremely dire. The bubble will definitely burst one day - for example, the foreigners want to realize their profits and invest their cash in other places. In such a scenario, the "ignorant" Singaporeans who over-stretched - and there are many of them - will suffer. Painfully.

The bigger the bubble is allowed to inflate, the harder the fall, the more painful will be the suffering. More citizens will suffer.

Do you think the PAP government is _that_ short-sighted? It must ensure the bubble gets deflated soon, or even allow it to burst soon, than to allow it to burst later.

PM Lee ever said he prefers to take the bitter pill sooner than later.

And PAP will not allow WP to so easily form the next government.

You have not been reading the papers recently, I believe. The Minister for National Development, Mr Khaw Boon Wan, just mentioned in Parliament as recent as 2 weeks ago, that he has no plans to rein in foreign demand for private property, as we need to be mindful of the "serious economic and social consequences".

I can even pull out the media reports for you, if you need....

The bottom line: The PAP government realizes very late that it has gone far down the wrong road of no return in the housing policy arena, and the only way forward is to continue to prop up stubbornly high private property price levels by accomodating and even encouraging foreign demand. The costs of not doing so are horrendous, as thousands of Singaporean households would find themselves in negative equities over-night, having made their dream house purchases at sky high prices.

But this also means successive generations of Singaporeans would need to pay higher and higher prices to realize their "private property' dreams.

Short of legally forbiding Singaporeans from purchasing private properties, there are really little policy tools left in its arsenal

If what you say is true, then they are simply kicking the can down the road. You said "the costs of not doing so are horrendous", but I will counter that the costs of not taking a firm action now is much more horrendous in future.

All I can say is that I'm disappointed. I hope the bubble bursts before the next GE, and we can vote in WP as new government to clean up the mess. Whether WP will become another Obama (who is facing difficulties because he inherited the hard problems from the Bush administration), we'll wait and see.

Isn't it clear to both of you that the government is already preparing the ground for a hard landing next year. Read the papers.

My friend, what I have said are facts, of course they are true....the government cant afford to fix the problem now.....doing so would definitely earn them tons of badwill and failure at the next GE.

Remember.....these all started when the present government headed by Mr Lee hsien Loong decided to "create a playground for the rich" out of this tiny city state afew years back....so we see everything from housing prices and cost of living jacked up relentlessly over the past few years by rapid influx of rich foreigners......yes, some rich Singaporeans have become even richer and happier through en-bloc sales etc....but the majority are paying the price for afew lucky ones

Helping people to survive retrenchments is totally different from helping people to pay their mortages, my friend!

People who lose their jobs may get help from the government to go for so-call subsidsied training funded by the government....but do they not need to eat and pay mortages even when they are out of jobs???

I dont think this is considered " preparing the ground for hard landing" ???