HDB Condo Ratio

It's hard for people to compare income and net worth with each other. The easy (and sometimes superficial) way is to compare the stuff they wear, the cars they drive, and the type of housing they stay in.

We know that driving a BMW and staying in a condo both exudes a certain snob factor.

But a car is a big liability in Singapore, a burden. A beautiful car may or may not make you a snob, but it certainly makes you poorer. Without even looking at the value of the car itself, just its PARF and COE become increasingly worthless as time goes by.

So, we'll not talk about cars. It will be a topic for another day.

What about the housing type one stays in? A piece of property - whether a house, a HDB flat or a condo - is an asset (unlike a car). So, regardless of whether it gives you a good feeling, it's arguably a reasonable yardstick to compare wealth.

Very generally, and perhaps stereotypically (& controversially), HDB is cheaper than condo, and condo is cheaper than landed property.

According to Singapore 2007, Statistical Highlights (link), 77.8% of all residential dwelling units are HDB flats, 14.3% are condominiums and private flats, and 6.2% are private houses.

The ratio of HDB dwellers to condo dwellers is thus 5.44 to 1. For every family staying in a condo, there are more than 5 families living in HDB flats.

And going by our controversial generalisation mentioned 3 paragraphs ago, if you live in landed property, you are in the top 6.2%. If you stay in condo, you are in the top 20.5%.

http://www.salary.sg/2007/hdb-condo-ratio/

But many ppl who can afford private properties choose to live in HDB!

There are many condos now, especially in district 9, 10 and 11 that cost far more than many landed properties. In fact, the record price paid for a condo is about 31 million. It would be wrong for some 1 living in a small landed property in a non-prime district to immediately assume that he's in the top 6.2% as condo units in the prime districts probably cost 2 to 3 times his landed property. A fairly large (3000 square feet) condo unit in district 9 at the current price of 2500 per square foot will be currently worth about 7.5 million. I think that you should consider the district and the sizes of individual condo units before making such generalizations.

tristan, perhaps I should also include the word "controversially" in my post.
I may do what you suggest in the future (when I have the data). Thanks.
(By the way, there are also many good class bungalows that fetch astronomical transacted prices. It's just that the media recently covered more on the condo frenzy, maybe because people can relate better to sky-high apartments than to sprawling bungalows.)

Can someone please explain to me the Singaporean hype around "landed property."

I personally prefer to stay in a nice posh District 9/10/11 condo rather than a "landed property".

Singapore's "landed" property isn't like overseas landed where you have acres and acres of land, and cannot see into your neighbour's backyard or your neighbour's opposite facing window.

So I really don't get the hype surrounding landed property, especially when there are many condos in D9/10/11 going for more than 10 million, while some landed (semi-Ds, smaller bunaglows are going for 2.5 - 5 million or less)

Someone please explain this concept to me??