On the flip side, the prices of housing are soaring up high and the government came up with new policies to pull down the prices. They introduced the Seller's Stamp Duty (SSD) in Aug 2010, which sellers need to pay this SSD if they sell their flats within 3 years. On 14 Jan 2011, they lengthened the period to 4 years and increased the SSD payable. Deter those speculators from locking in short term possession of the flats and selling in short period of time. In hope of releasing more supply of flats into the market for those who are really looking for a house to call their home. They also lowered the Loan-to-Valuation (LTV) from 80% to 70% if one has existing housing loan. Those who wish to upgrade their homes to bigger space are now faced in the situation whereby they need to fork out more cash as they can now loan lesser for their housing or still eligible for the 80% loan if they sell their current housing and buy a new flat. For the latter, there would be a downtime in between whereby the family has no place to stay but to turn to rented flats for temporary shelter. Which means increasing the cost to upgrade their homes and moving twice incurring more cost. What does this imply? Does it release more supply of resale flat into the market for real buyers?
The holding period is now longer before one can sell their flat. Which means that there would be a decreased in supply as the flats are been locked in for sale. The current supply is already insufficient to match the demand, by locking in the supply of flats would only push the prices higher.
Families who wish to upgrade their homes due to bigger family now has to reconsider. The new policy makes it troublesome to move big families and not to mention the cost involved.
So how is this related to the fertility rate mentioned at the beginning. Well, we all know we need to have shelter before we can consider settling down to setup a family. With the decrease in supply of flats from the resale market, those couples whom want to get married and start a family are unable to, even if they want to. Are these couples able to afford the ridiculously high Cash-over-valuation (COV) portion? Ok, maybe young couples are not cash rich to buy resale, so they wait for Build-to-Order (BTOs) from HDB. But, looking at the figures every month on the number of people applying for the BTOs, how many actually got a chance to own a flat? There are people who applied 9-10 times or even 20 times for a BTO flat. But still, they don't get a queue number or their number is 2 times the flats available. The government claimed that priority are given to first timers and those stay near parents, but this was not seen in the real life cases of the applicants.
Consider this scenario, a couple met in University and they decided to work a few years before deciding to settle down. They graduate at 21 & 23 respectively. So work for 4-5 years, they are now 25 & 27. They applied for a BTO flat. Wait for another 4-5 years for the project to complete. they are now 30 & 32. So how many kids the government is expecting the couple to have? This scenario is if they are so lucky to get a flat so soon. Also, if they get hitch at a later age den it's a whole new story.....
So the 2 Fs go hand in hand. You want the young Singaporeans to procreate and start a Family, you provide the chance for them to buy a Flat more easily. Not having to wait for years in order to get one.
I just hope the government can 'marry' the 2 when making policies to boost birth rate and to curb housing issues.
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