Public pressure: Half of Singaporeans demand affordable housing

And 39.7% wish that the Ministry will introduce means testing to determine the amount of subsidy potential home buyers can receive.

According to a survey by iProperty, the market is anxious and hopeful that the new Minister for National Development, Minister Khaw Boon Wan, will help them fulfill dreams of owning an affordable property in Singapore.

Most survey respondents (49.8%) hope the Ministry will embark on a building spree to flood the market with affordable housing, thereby slowing the rise in property prices even if this means dampening asset enhancement for current homeowners.

A large percentage (39.7%) of survey respondents wish the Ministry will introduce means testing to determine the amount of subsidy potential home buyers can receive. This way, lower-income families will be more likely to afford housing.

A small handful (10.5%) of those surveyed is supportive of additional Government-initiated policies that will further increase the value of properties to ensure homeowners’ current assets will be enhanced.

A total of 315 respondents comprising mostly Singaporeans, Permanent Residents (PRs) and expatriates took part in this online survey from 24 May to 27 June 2011.

Demand for residential housing remains high despite Minister Khaw’s promise to build a record 25,000 new flats this year and continue a heightened building pace for next year, which could result in the release of 50,000 new HDB flats in just two years.

However, with Minister Khaw still yet to unveil his master plan to quell the local red-hot demand for housing property, Shaun Di Gregorio, Chief Executive Officer of the iProperty.com Group, expects more anxiety to build-up until a new plan is announced, “The current set of cooling measures so far had some impact on the local housing property market, but the measures are not entirely taking effect.”

“With home prices at an all-time-high at the moment, we can see that many home buyers are just focused on being able to find affordable homes, and this will remain a key concern for them until the Housing Development Board (HDB) makes up for the shortfall in the supply of affordable public housing for this group of buyers in the coming years,” he said.

He added, “The recent news announced over the weekend that the average cash over valuation (COV) paid by home buyers in the April to June period had jumped 50 per cent over the last quarter is yet another sign that the last round of cooling measures and Minister Khaw’s recent blog comments had only dampened the supply while demand remains high and there are buyers who would continue to pay top dollar for HDB homes in popular mature estates.”