No Tears Expected

Housing prices in Singapore are still high. “Cooling measures” by the Singapore government has failed. And now the Singapore government is announcing that it will restrict the growth of "shoebox" private apartments in the country.

Despite conventional wisdom, most people I spoke to seem to think this is a good idea. You could think otherwise as the population in Singapore has shot up in recent years due to the government's liberal immigration policies and this has caused housing prices in land-scarce Singapore to go through the roof.

Yet despite this, Singaporeans generally has no love for “shoebox” apartments. In fact, most Singaporeans will be happy to see the back of it. A shoebox unit in Singapore is typically only about half the size of an average HDB flat and they were first built in responses to the lack of housing options in Singapore. Some Singaporeans don’t even consider them “real” flats.

So high housing prices notwithstanding, there will be no tears for the demise of “shoebox” apartments. Now maybe, property companies can get back to building “real” flats for Singaporeans!