Mr Khaw said:
"Every year, marriages that are involving citizens, we're talking about 15,000 family formations a year. So 25,000 units (new flats a year) provide some buffer. But we also have additional demand from upgraders, downgraders, second timers.Forgot about new citizens?
In fact, if not for other policy changes I'd be beginning to wind it (the supply) down a little bit. Other than these, because now we have this new subject of catering for singles. So I have to deliberately ramp it up a little bit higher in order to cater for singles. We're still mulling over it. Very hard to put a figure on how much should we cater for singles."
I think the Minister may have forgotten about the average of about 18,500 new citizens a year, over the last five years or so. The actual figure for last year was 19,777 (“NCMP Lina Chiam's question discovers more new citizens last year”).
Forgot about PRs in resale market too?
We should also not forget about the 340,000 new Permanent Residents (PRs) for the five years from 2006 to 2010(“Rapid Growth in Singapore's Immigrant Population Brings Policy Challenges" By Brenda S.A. Yeoh and Weiqiang Lin, National University of Singapore), who may add demand and pricing pressure in the HDB resale and rental markets. Full story
