I refer to Jalan Besar GRC MP Denise Phua’s remarks in Parliament that some households may need two years’ salary to be the equivalent of the price of a S$140,000 HDB flat and Mountbatten SMC MP Lim Biow Chuan’s remarks suggesting that the fact that people are queuing up at the Housing Development Board (HDB) to buy Built-To-Order (BTO) flats proves that they are affordable.
The suggestion that the fact that people are buying HDB BTO flats proves that they are affordable is arguably, a flawed and nonsensible use of statistics, because, for example, when the property market is very hot, and people queue and rush to buy when an expensive high-end condo is launched—surely does not and cannot mean that the condo is affordable.
As to the two years price to income ratio of a S$140,000 HDB BTO flat—how many people earn about $70,000 a year?
Well, the answer is 1,617,000 employed residents earned less than S$6,000 a month.
This is 71.9 per cent of the total resident workforce of 2,248,700 in June 2021.
