Friday, October 07, 2011

Affordability of housing

IMF figures show that a 70 square meter home in Beijing costs about 20 times the average annual household disposable income, quadruple the national ratio and almost seven times higher than in the United States. Definition: Disposable income is total personal income minus personal current taxes.  
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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Feel really sorry for those house buyers at Beijing. House ownership should be treated as part of national security in China.

October 07, 2011 9:35 PM
Tan Kin Lian said...

It seems that in the USA,the cost of a house is 3 times of the average annual household disposable income. In Singapore, the average is about 6 times, or twice of the USA. If the USA can get into trouble with their housing prices, it will be more harmful when the market in Singapore crashes.

October 07, 2011 11:12 PM
Anonymous said...

The property market in Singapore won't crash for 3 reasons, all related to the govt's strong ability to control.

1. HDB prices, and indirectly even HDB resale prices, are under the control of the government.

2. Private property prices is dependent on HDB prices, which sets the base price for which they won't fall below it. And the government could influence private property supply through release or holding back of land sales to developers.

3. Singapore is small, only 700 sq km, hence easier to control supply because there is only so much land (which the govt owns almost all, if not they can acquire it under the Land Acquisition Act) and housing that can be built for a given population, and this can also be easily controlled by the government through foreigner immigration.

The only way property in Singapore can crash is when nobody wants to live or come here anymore. What is the chance of this happening?

October 08, 2011 7:13 AM
Solomon said...

Mr Tan, I believe housing in Singapore is less vulnerable than in The US because 80% of Sinagporean live in HDB apartments. If there is severe recession, EPF acts as a cushion for aprtment owners, they can go without a job but they do not have to sell their HDB in the hurry.

October 08, 2011 8:43 AM

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