A letter from a reader.

Lee Hsien Loong, you are as good a sweet talker and big time liar as your father.

If you have priced the flats correctly, you do not need to hand out a housing subsidy. Why don’t you price a 4-room flats at S1 million and then tell the young couple that you are giving him a big subsidy of S$700,000 assuming the final price the couple paid is $300,000?

Affordable? What do you mean by affordable?

Extending a housing loan that takes the young couple 30 years to pay is called affordable. You are locking this poor young couple to work as a slave to you for their next 30 years. In my opinion, a reasonable loan period should not exceed 20 years. Of course, the longer the loan period, the HDB flats that HDB sells can fetch a much, much higher price, period. You are robbing the people of their money and turning them into your slaves for 30 years. Please do not argue over this point. Just admit it. Your father started the GREAT HDB upgrading program and you are continuing his legacy of robbing the people of Singapore.

Now you said the government does not control the resale flats. Why? During the great upgrading period from 1990 and 2000, what did the HDB appointed surveyors did to jack up the price of the resale price to make the spiraling rise in the new flats price looks so much more attractive. Of course, now you don’t care about the resale price level because of two reasons.

1) You have over-priced the new flats when they were first sold.

2) Do you care about returning the drop in valuation of the resale flats because you had over=price the same flat when it was first sold to the poor owner who now is the sucker for the dropped in price of about $100,000. Btw, the new flats were sold bare, each owners had to dump in S$60,000 to S$120,000 to renovate the flat before moving in. That means, the poor owner who is selling his flats lost almost S$200,000.

Father and son are both great liars of the 20/21centuries and are utterly irresponsible.

Jan 26, 2010, New flats stay affordable By Jeremy Au Yong, The Straits Times online edition.

WHILE the Government will keep the prices of new Housing Board (HDB) flats in check, it has less control over prices in the resale market.

This state of affairs was highlighted by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Tuesday night when he commented for the first time on what has been one of the hottest topics of discussion.

Speaking at a gala dinner to mark the HDB’s 50th anniversary, Mr Lee stressed the Government was committed to keeping HDB flats affordable and that its new flats are priced within the means of the vast majority of Singaporeans.

On top of that, it would also build enough new flats to cater to demand as the population grows. In fact, to cap its 50th year, the HDB will build its 1 millionth flat this year.

However, the Government does not have control over the prices of resale flats, he said.

His explanation: ‘These resale prices are set by individual households who transact flats on a willing buyer, willing seller basis, and are affected by movements and sentiments in the wider economy, including the private property market. Hence, resale prices of HDB flats will fluctuate from year-to-year.’

Comments

We help ourselves. Don’t expect others to help

Tom Wright painted a bleak picture of Singapore’s property sector going forward at The Wall Street Journal. His article ended with the following:
“I’m yet to see the light at the end of the tunnel [for Singapore],” says Mr. Tan, the high-end broker.
We would expect people to continue to dig the dirt and tell it to [...]



Our skin isn’t as thick as it should be

The Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) organised a seminar on March 4 to discuss Singapore’s political blogosphere.  Tan Tarn How, Senior Research Fellow and Research Assistant Tan Simin presented their paper on trends observed in the blogosphere.  As reported in the TOC, the researchers identified the following limitations:

The online-offline firewall, while somewhat alleviated by offline [...]



Singapore and Lee Kuan Yew – The answer to the African problem?

Recently, I followed a thread “Democracy and Economic Growth” which started in PoliticsForum.org.   Apparently, members there often question the role of democracy in a developing nation. “During the wave of democratization in Africa during the 90s, many people had renewed hope for the continent, immediately equating newly established democracies to economic growth. Are these democracies [...]



Tell Singapore government: Ask them a question or give a suggestion

We informed people about the “Tell Singapore Government” subsite and have received some interesting reaction at some forums.
See: 3in1 Kopitiam, Sam’s Alfresco Coffee, Singapore Kopitiam, SgForums
Our responses to some of the comments are listed below. If we are not answering some other specific questions, that is because we do not know how.
 
1. If you want [...]

Petitions

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

I don’t know

Our Singapore

As seen by people

• 
  

• Purpose

To observe, analyse, present our position, and call for action. Read our articles, give your views, and learn together with us.