This was after four flats in my block had transacted at between $1 million and $1.21 million in the past year. Someone paid a little over $1 million for a unit located between the first and third floors, with 90 years and four months left on the lease, in October 2024.
I am grateful to have bought my home, which is fully paid up and has unblocked views of the Central Business District and the pre-war/post-war SIT flats in the Tiong Bahru conservation area, for under $1 million five years ago. But I don’t feel like I’ve hit the jackpot.
In fact, I am wondering if another round of property cooling measures is just around the corner, waiting like the Christmas Grinch.
Making the leap to a 1,000 sq ft new private home in Singapore is next to impossible with just $1 million, unless I take on debt and tap my Central Provident Fund (CPF) savings. Or I could settle for a 25-year-old resale condo unit in the suburbs at a median price of $1.32 million.
Missed opportunity
As I pondered the next step in the quest for my forever home, memories of a missed opportunity came flooding back.
There was a time I could have bought the home of singer Marie Osmond in Utah where I worked. Aptly named “The Entertainer’s Dream”, the 9,000 sq ft mansion has six bedrooms, five bathrooms and a basketball court, and was first put up for sale in 2007 at US$1.2 million. But at the height of the subprime mortgage crisis, the asking price dropped to US$845,000.
Ms Osmond was selling the property as part of a divorce agreement with her second husband, Brian Blosil. The couple announced their divorce in March 2007.
I worked for The Daily Herald in Utah then and had scored this exclusive. Ironically, it came a few years after a story I wrote about George Osmond – head of the Osmond clan – prompted the 87-year-old patriarch to visit our newsroom in a wheelchair to get a copy of the paper.
Little did any of us know that, just a few years later, his daughter’s home would be put on the market.
In hindsight, I should have made an offer. Today, 9,000 sq ft homes in that exclusive enclave list for at least US$1.89 million (S$2.58 million), according to Realtor.com.
But at the time, I chickened out. Having covered the subprime crisis in the Utah property market, I was loath to get into debt.
More On This Topic
Number of million-dollar HDB flats resold hit all-time high in June as resale prices rise 1.8%
Those million-dollar flats are outliers. Housing remains largely affordable
Eighteen years on, as I face another fork in my home-hunting journey, I realise that $2.58 million buys you far tinier properties in Singapore. A 1,000-1,200 sq ft leasehold resale condo unit in the city fringe with at least 89 years left on the lease currently fetches a median price of $2.37 million, according to OrangeTee Group.
While this isn’t a fair or realistic comparison, given that the investment returns or rental yields, and capital appreciation or price growth, of properties in Utah and Singapore are different, I suffer from the grass-is-greener syndrome – an inability to feel content with life as it is, and being always on a quest for something better.
It doesn’t help that many HDB dwellers, especially those in blocks known to spawn million-dollar flat sales, are bombarded with fliers from real estate agents tempting them to sell their units once these have reached the five-year MOP, and bragging about the million-dollar record-setting deals they have scored.
During the pandemic, HDB dwellers were taught how to use their sale proceeds plus a loan to buy not one, but two, private condos. The idea behind the so-called “sell one, buy two” strategy is for a couple to sell their current property and have each spouse take a separate mortgage for a separate property. As neither spouse is likely to have more than one property, no Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty would apply.
For me, the clock is also ticking. If I want to upgrade to a new condo, I will have to do it before I hit 55, the age when additional restrictions on CPF withdrawals kick in.
When eligible Singaporeans reach 55, their CPF Retirement Account is created with savings from their Special and Ordinary accounts to meet their applicable retirement sum. They will also be automatically included in the CPF Life scheme, which provides members with a monthly payout for life if they meet the criteria. Any funds left in their Ordinary Account can then be used for mortgage repayments.
The way I see it...
But at the end of the day, how much property do I really need?
Even if I can sell my flat for a little over a million dollars, that’s not enough to cover the costs of a new 1,000-1,200 sq ft condo in the suburbs – a submarket popular with HDB upgraders – as median prices have jumped above the $2.4 million mark.
And is it really an upgrade when I have to incur hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, stump up more cash and CPF funds, and see a hefty portion of my monthly salary go towards mortgage payments plus monthly maintenance and sinking fund fees – all to quieten the fear of missing out?
Is there a need to keep chasing that dream home in a coveted location when there is no guarantee that property will forever remain a safe store of value? This is especially as the impact of climate change is already being felt in Singapore, and rising sea levels and extreme weather events such as floods and droughts are growing in frequency and intensity.
A climate report published by The Straits Times on Dec 27, 2024, found that Singapore experienced 122 extra days of dangerous heat in 2024, one of the hottest years for the country in recent times. Without climate change, which exacerbates extreme weather events such as heatwaves, Singapore would experience only four such days.
Notably, greenhouse gas emissions from Singapore’s land use sector are expected to rise between now and 2030, even though total emissions from this sector remain low. But what’s worrying is data from a climate report that Singapore submitted to the United Nations in November 2024 which showed that planting new trees cannot replace carbon loss from forest clearance in the short term, ST reported.
More On This Topic
A home is still affordable in Singapore unless you expect a luxury house
Public housing will always be kept affordable, says PM Wong
And with more land slated for housing, more deforestation will likely be on the cards.
In the final analysis, no matter how much more land for housing is pumped out, or how many more rounds of cooling measures are implemented, it won’t make any difference as long as Singaporeans continue their love affair with property, in their quest for potential profit.
For me, it’s harder to give up – for the sake of upgrading to private housing – public housing perks such as rebates for my utility and conservancy bills, and the Climate Friendly Households programme, where each HDB household can claim $300 in vouchers to buy energy- and water-efficient appliances and fittings from April 15, 2024 to Dec 31, 2027.
Is it worthwhile having to cough up thousands of dollars a quarter for a condo’s maintenance, when I already have an MP who cares about her residents’ needs, and an efficient town council maintaining the public housing estates in Tiong Bahru at affordable conservancy fees?
Even if I could score a six-figure profit if I were to trade in my HDB flat at this point, and buy a private property in the suburbs or city fringe areas, where median psf prices for condos have seen triple-digit percentage growth in the past 15 years, I think I will pass.
Because I have enough. For now.
Grace Leong is senior correspondent at The Straits Times, covering property, white-collar crime, bankruptcies and liquidation.
No comments:
Post a Comment