Parliamentary discussions highlight ongoing concerns over affordable housing amidst rising resale prices.
The issue of affordable housing continues to spark debate in Parliament, especially as the resale price index for public housing has risen for ten consecutive quarters. Recently, questions were raised by Workers’ Party MP Gerald Giam (Aljunied GRC) and NCMP Leong Mun Wai (Progress Singapore Party) regarding the overlap between HDB flat ownership and private property ownership.
Mr. Giam inquired about the number of HDB flat owners who also possess private properties, along with those who do not reside in their HDB flats. He further questioned whether the government plans to revise policies that allow HDB flat lessees to retain their flats after acquiring private properties and what strategies the Ministry of National Development (MND) has to increase the supply of resale HDB flats and regulate their prices.
Mr. Leong echoed similar concerns, asking for data on HDB flat owners who own private residential properties and rent out rooms, as well as those who do not own additional properties but have rented out at least one room in their flat.
In response, Minister for National Development Desmond Lee addressed the queries on Monday (Nov 7). He confirmed that Singapore citizen households that have met the minimum occupation period (MOP) for their HDB flats are permitted to purchase private residential properties without selling their HDB flats, albeit incurring an Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty of at least 17% on their second and subsequent residential properties.
As of October this year, around 3% of HDB flat owners also own at least one private residential property, a slight decrease of 0.3 percentage points over the past three years. Notably, about 45% of these owners do not reside in their HDB flats, having rented them out entirely. An additional 4% are renting out one or more bedrooms in their flats, a figure that has remained stable.
Conversely, among the 97% of HDB flat owners who do not own private properties, approximately 13% rent out their entire flat or parts of it, with this proportion also stable over the last three years.
Minister Lee acknowledged Mr. Giam’s proposal to potentially require HDB flat owners to sell their flats upon purchasing private property, as well as similar suggestions from Mr. Yip Hon Weng last month. The MND has been gathering feedback from Singaporeans as part of the Forward Singapore initiative and will carefully consider these perspectives alongside other ideas.
Mr. Giam highlighted in a Facebook post that addressing the resale prices of HDB flats is crucial for making housing more affordable for lower and middle-income Singaporeans. He proposed that requiring buyers of private properties to sell their HDB flats could increase the availability of resale flats for those in need of housing.
