Who's Hardest Hit in Heartlands

Who's Hardest Hit in Heartlands
By TODAY | Posted: 14 August 2008 1111 hrs

When it comes to money woes, the hardest hit are those living in four-room HDB flats.

These homeowners form a disproportionately large number of the hardship cases that MPs come across during their meet-the-people sessions, according to the latest issue of Petir,the People’s Action Party (PAP)magazine.

The financial problems raised during these sessions include jobs, welfare and assistance issues, and difficulty in paying utility bills, said Dr Beng Teck Liang, a member of the PAP’s Policy forum’s council. Its “preliminary” findings are based on data collected from the sessions held all over Singapore over the past five years or so.

Dr Beng said the forum would ask National DevelopmentMinister Mah Bow Tan at aforthcoming dialogue if applicants for four-room flats should be screened to see if they could afford to buy the flats in order to prevent “sub-prime” problems from cropping up.

Senior Minster of State for Trade and Industry, Mr S Iswaran, noted that the Housing Development Board now conducts credit assessments, “something we should have done from the start”.

“What’s sub-prime? It’s lending to people who maybe shouldn’t be borrowing somuch,” said Mr Iswaran, who was asked about the problem duringa dialogue session with the forum.

“The reality is there are some people who want to buy four-room flats but they don’t qualify for the loan for that amount, but if they want to buy a three-room flat, they can.

“So, this is really at the front end — trying to start moderating people’s expectations.”

He suggested that those facing problems servicing their home loans should cut their losses by selling their flats and downgrading to a smaller one or renting instead. - TODAY/ra

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I had a very bad experience with a owner in Pasir Ris. These are the owners default loan payment, any how rent and then try to increase rent in all possible ways. Finally show a sorry face and you end up with shifting your house in few months and then partially or fully forget about deposit money and so on. Go to small claim court and they make a joke of the matter.
Accept that there are genuine cases but majority of them over commits than their means and end up in soup and pull others into the same soup. So far my experience seems to be that MPs are a bit soft on these cases. They need to be strict and this nuisance will end.

We will see this story repeat many times over with the current generation of flat owners. Especially ones buying flat in past year at high prices. They think they will continue getting high bonuses and keep their job for ever.

Some will find out they were wrong. Then it will be too late

Subprime hit US, Europe and Japan already

Is Singapore next?

if you mean most people got no brain , i agree 100% . And many are greedy and cunning to the extreme.