A “Prison” for a Home?

In case you’ve been wondering what’s happened to me in the past few weeks after the change of a new calendar, well, I must confess that I’ve been swarmed for quite a fair bit. There were the back to back festive holidays, sprinkled with several wedding banquets to help facilitate/attend to, as well as previewing some overpriced public housing apartments that peers have purchased from the authorities.

In this entry, I’ll spare you the details of the festivities and shed some light on the overpriced public housing that most Singaporeans will eventually fall victim to. I believe, many would agree by now that it’d make better sense to be called High Debts Bureau.

It is evident that accessibility to the new estates to the north-eastern region is still a logistical nightmare, little or almost no bus services weaving the estate, while the light-rail service is not the ideal mode of transport. Unless one drives to & from home on a daily basis, public commute probably is the only deterrent for anyone to get to work.

Multi-storey parking as anticipated is not very centralized among clusters of blocks, which then leads one to ponder why the prejudiced positioning? Perhaps, intent is to fetch better dollar for those within close walking distance, while all others having to pay the same price for season parking, despite the longer walking distance.

As I’ve noticed, the common corridor these days are a little more spacious, hence, allowing more natural light & breeze to liven up the common areas. However, upon entering the units, it’s as though they were all built on the same template. And is really quite weird, to think that 1 who pays 350 grand for their home, has 95% similarity to those who’ve purchased their home for nearly a million for DBSS or EC.

Apart from number of bedrooms, and a few extra tile spaces, one can hardly tell the difference between a unit in Punggol/ Sengkang, compared to one in Queenstown/ Tiong Bahru/ Tanjong Pagar.

Paying a little attention to the details, one can easily conclude that the workmanship is quite horrendous, while the space planning in some areas is critically flawed. Namely; the common bathroom that doesn’t accommodate wheelchair bound users, despite there being, sloped tiles to facilitate wheelchair entry. The master bedroom is small enough to fit a queen-size bed, a tiny wardrobe that can’t fit clothes for 2, and hardly any walking space. In some cases, the master bath entrance is positioned as such, where it is almost impossible to put a queen size bed in the master bedroom.

Full height windows are also contravening the concept of reducing carbon footprints, because air-conditioning becomes necessary to counter the greenhouse effects.

The fundamental principle for public housing is to cater for vast majority of citizens to have a roof over their heads. Yet, pricing these high-rise pigeon holes at figures requiring home owners to enslave themselves to average 25-30yrs mortgage, if it’s not cut-throat, I honestly don’t know what is.

Food for thought, if a couple is committed to 25-30yrs mortgage for their homes, under most circumstances, their OA in their CPF is wiped out totally. Assuming each household bears two children (3yrs apart), 20yrs down the road, when the firstborn needs to enroll for tertiary, there’s hardly enough in the OA to finance their tuition fees. Needless to say, the younger of the 2 is likely to be denied tertiary education, or has to put tertiary education on hold, until the firstborn graduates & starts replenishing the parent’s OA in the CPF.

The above assumption is only in context of new public housing developments, because the price to pay for any resale adn/or private developments are obviously luxuries and not necessities.

So, before anyone puts the pen to the paper to enslave themselves to 3 decades of debts, I really hope they’d do their math in anticipation for what trauma & distress they’d be encountering in time to come.

Are we really doing what’s necessary to provide a better future for generations to come (let alone feasibility of a retirement)? You alraedy have the answer.