Grace Fu: Hard to “predict” short term demand for housing
January 11th, 2010 | 
Author: Written by Our Correspondent
Senior Minister of State for National Development Grace Fu told Parliament today that there are adequate housing, facilities and infrastructure to meet the demands of a growing population.
However, there are cases where short-term demand is not met because it is very hard to “predict” such demand, such as for housing.
“This is because there is always a lead time involved,” she said without elaborating more on it.
The National Development Ministry led by Mr Mah Bow Tan had come under intense criticisms from the public of late due to the shortage of public housing for Singaporeans which is exacerbated by a growing population contributed largely by the relentless influx of foreigners.
The floodgates appear to open a few years ago when Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced an ambitious plan to increase Singapore’s population to 6.5 million people via immigration.
A quick check on the HDB Infoweb reveals that the number of HDB flats built between the years 2005 – 2008 are fewer than the preceding four years.
In the face of rising demand and limited supply of flats, the prices of HDB flats sky-rocketed in Singapore, reaching a record peak high in June last year.
Mr Mah admitted lately that he was “caught off guard” by the spike in prices and reassured Singaporeans that HDB flats will remain “affordable” to the majority of the population.
Despite repeated reassurances from HDB and government ministers, there is a prevailing sentiment on the ground that ordinary Singaporeans are being priced out of reach in the public housing market.
Even for those who can afford to pay for these over-priced flats, they will probably have to deplete their CPFs in order to do so.
The situation is worsened by PRs who “spoil” the market by paying higher than market prices for resale flats. For example, one Indonesian PR forked out $653,000 for a four-room resale flat in Queenstown when he could well afford a private apartment.
As prices of new flats are pegged to the recent transaction of resale flats in the vicinity, this contributes indirectly to the high prices fetched by two BTO projects launched in Queenstown lately with an average price of more than $500,000 for four-room flats and $600,000 for five room flats.
According to Mohamad Ismail, the CEO of real estate agency Propnex, as high as 20 per cent of the buyers of resale flats are PRs. Another agency C&H Realty quoted a figure as high as 50 per cent, yet Mr Mah claimed that PRs form only a “small proportion” of the buyers of resale flats.
Some PRs eventually sell their flats for a generous profit after they leave Singapore for their homeland where they can retire comfortably for the rest of their lives while locals continue to pay the high price for the ruling party’s pro foreigner policy.
Being the highest paid ministers in the world, it is unforgivable for Mr Mah and Ms Fu not to foresee the rise in HDB prices with more foreigners coming into Singapore.
Furthermore, the Singapore cabinet is blessed with a “forecaster extraordinarie” who does nothing much other than to “do forecasting.”
Perhaps he should spend more time “mentoring” the junior ministers to ensure they don’t make such a disastrous mistake again instead of flying around the world to lecture others on how to run their countries.
Posted in Editorial
To : Grace Fu – GO HELP THIS HANDICAP GUY
He has been ignored by for 2 months plus,
HBD CEO Tay Kim Poh
HDB Deputy Director Chee Kim Chye
MP Arthur Fong
GM WCTC Clementi Tay Eng Hwa
POSTINGS AT REACH ARE STONE-WALLED BY REACH ADMIN OR NOT REPLIED
http://www.todayonline.com/Voices/EDC091126-0000059/Direct-lift-access-not-always-possible–HDB
http://app.reach.gov.sg/reach/YourSay/YourDiscussionCorner/tabid/117/ptid/414/page/2147483647/threadid/2848/forumtype/posts/Default.aspx
[Page 17]
http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/showthread.php?t=2579980
Why called Senior Minister of State?
Many countries had changed it to Deputy Minister/ Senior Deputy Minister, including Malaysia.
Is it because fancy pay needs fancy name?
To : Grace Fu –
PRS SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO SELL HDB FLAT N KEEP PROFIT UNLESS …….
PR who sells HDB flats should not be allowed to keep the profit.
Instead they should be paid prevailing bank interest rates on the cost of the flat upon sale, unless the profit is lower.
Whatever excess profits will be donated to charity.
“Pay peanut, you got monkey” is not alway true because you still got monkey despite paying millions !!! As the minister, you have to forecast short and long perspective. Moreover, why need to forecast as the immigration figure should be known to the MBT and Grace Fu since the information is within the government.
“This is because there is always a lead time involved,”
But your lead time is too long, if HDB is a private company, it will lose business to more nimble companies.
When she is able to predict short term salary of hundred of thousand each month, it is ridiculous she can’t do it for housing.
Is she a fool ?!
For the POLICY MAKERS,the best way to test the sincerity of your beloved FTs/PRs is to IMPOSE A HIGH CAPITAL GIANS TAX
that is varaible with market condition that would PENALISE those insincere PRs who just want to make a quick buck here.
PRs who stay in their flats for X years can then later enjoy same benefits as citizens.
It seems to me the entire system is completely disorganised, the left hand doenst know what right hand doing and nobody cares and just wait for things to happen. That is to say, wait for a certain old man to say something and then react. Reactive, not Proactive. We hve degenerated to such a sorry state of governance.
Another obvious problem which may be discussed and should be made public. With six million, have they planned to increase the Police Force, the Fire Brigade, the Power Stations, set aside land, examine the alternative sources of Food, renew contract with Malaysia for Water to support the additional population. The last one – very leceh, very sticky!!!
These things should not be taken for granting, it’s not only housing.
I DON”T FEEL COMFORTABLE AT ALL especially looking at the crazy orchard road pedestrian traffic.
It is wreckless to pack our small dot with 6 million before doing pro-active analysis by the xperts in various fields, who should make public all their plans. There is no Master Plan at all it’s just following what the top says and collecting salary for each month at a time. Yup, singaporean top level hierachy are less hard striving, no doubt about it.
zero
I have no problems with PRs buying resale flats. In the past it was not a problem also as there were plenty of new flats awaiting Singapore citizen buyers (remember Walk-In-Selection?)
Today’s housing shortage problems arose after HDB decided to evade its responsibilities of predicting demand and supply by having all flats build-to-order. It is a no brainer job – build only when enough people order. A small team can do this job, why bother with so many fat cats in HDB? As a matter of fact, they retrenched all the useful engineers but retained the useless fat cats.
Our highest paid ministers in the world are truly useless. They complain that Singaporeans only want flats near MRT, but did they examine the reasons behind this? Feeder buses take 10 mins to come, and the looping journey takes another 10 mins. So it takes 20 mins just to get to the MRT station. MM Lee said it takes just 20 mins to get to any corner of Singapore. For us, it takes 20 mins just to get to MRT station.
And no, they can’t let private companies who can run better feeder services using smaller more frequent vans do the job, they got to protect the bus company profits.
This is lame. Even my 8 years old cousin knows about the concept of supply and demand.
More people = more demand.
Less people = less demand.
Stagnant supply, high demand = soaring price.
Simple basic common sense. Hell. My cousin should be a minister instead!
So whatever happened to IPS (the institute of policy studies?) Aren’t they the ones who are supposed to study and warn about this phenomena? Oh it got renamed into the LKY school of public policy.
No wonder.
i think singapore is the only country in the world that ALLOWS NON-CITIZENS TO BUY PUBLIC HOUSING.
those mofos at the top need to be booted out NOW.
@XIIIblackcat
In a free market economy, yes, the usual laws of demand and supply should apply.
However, this is Singapore. The government is the biggest landlord. It monopolises and manipulates the prices and supply of HDB flats.
The best thing to do is to vote with your wallet and refuse to buy a HDB flat. Stop feeding money to an organization that does not come clean with building costs and subsidies.
Stay single, purchase private property, rent, stay with parents etc. Consider the alternatives. Racking up a 30-year debt for a 99-year lease of a pigeon hole is, for a lack of a better word, slavery. Don’t fall for the ‘Singapore Dream’ or ’sense of belonging in flat ownership’ or ‘asset enhancement’ hype.
Don’t forget Singapore is probably the only place in the world where you have to pay for upgrades to PUBLIC HOUSING. Makes no sense, so don’t play their silly game.
“As Forecaster; Perhaps he should spend more time “mentoring” the junior ministers to ensure they don’t make such a disastrous mistake again instead of flying around the world to lecture others on how to run their countries”
Forecaster himself already cannot stand making a “DISASTROUS MISTAKE” losing us$575 million in Stuyvesant Town in NY. He went to bed and then he woke up crying and crying and went to bed again like a little boy.
Now, you asking him to spend more time mentoring, how much time left?
GRACE FU,
PR CAN BUY HDB FLATS BUT…………..
When HDB flat is sold, the PR cant keep the profit, give them current bank saving rate for the money they had fork-out for the flat.
The remainder profits be given to charity.
Hard to predict?
Obviously you all millionaires have not been communicating effectively. Go back and take some modules on “Effective communications” then. One side is talking about increasing population while the other is having a ‘hard time’ predicting demand for housing. Even pri 1 sch kids know playground is too crowded with increased pupil in sch. What’s so ‘hard’ then?
Imagine increasing your pay by 60% in 2007 doesn’t make u ‘more effective’ in ‘predicting’? If singapore is a private company, u would have been gone long time ago….
like someone said: Grace Fu has no grace. This article proves that she has no sense and no decency.
Collecting such a high salary and pushing blame around.
With an influx of 1 million ft, how can she no expect housing prices to go up?
Lame excuse.
What is there to forecast? You let in thousands of PRs who are eligible to buy 2nd hand HDB and you still think HDB prices will not go up?
The least you could do is PLAN! Make sure that the number of flats you build keep pace with the number of PRs you let in. That is ELEMENTARY!!!
What is the hurry in letting in so many PRs? Especially in a recession.
These ministers are an utter disaster!
THE SHORT TERM OF THE PRESENT IS THE LONG TERM OF THE PAST.
As far as I know Grace Fu is the daughter of James Fu who works in the PM office. The PAP do reward its supporter very well.
Why Mah Bow Tan needs to be voted out?
Public housing is no longer affordable and is now under the mercy of “market value” prices. And Mah Bow Tan says he’s caught off guard? Seriously ..I don’t need a Minister giving me fktard replies.
HDB uses statistics of those already pruchased flats as a benchmark of affordability, so they keep telling you “it’s affoirdable”. But they under report of those who cant even purchase flats or those who have housing arrears.
HBD will not breakdown the figure for construction cost because if they do, public will realise they are making a huge profit margin with their market value pricing policy.
Not covinced? Watch this video by Mr Leong Sze Hian
Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKWO2noG_z8
Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gGOBL4c9js
Short term or long term, I don’t care. Please just call for the election in the shortest time possible. If possible call for election tonight.
Actually,in most ministries,the MINISTERS merely authorise the po;icy decisions after the smart equally highly paid civil servants proposed them!
May I ask how come these people are call CIVIL SERVANTS when
they ARE NOT thinking for the CIVILIAN CITIZENS?
Ministers who make “political’ mistakes and they,therefore should not be voted in!
CIVIL servants who make ‘UNCIVIL’ POLICIES should be not work
for the CIVIL SERVICE,they should be taken off from civil posts!
Let only those CITIZENS who care for SINAGPORE N SINAGPOREANS
” KEEP THEIR JOBS ” and that includes most of us who have been
made victims by the FT POLICY!
LET’S GIVE DECENCY BACK TO TRUE BLUE SINGAPOREANS!!!!!
If you cannot even predict for short-term demand, how do you
go about planning for long term demand?
You have all the datas,govt. machineries,finances etc. etc.
at your dasposal and yet cannot predict short-term policies,
then you are as good as anyone of us! So why should we pay $million salaries for ministers who are only able to perform like the man-on-street! Remember, all of you are ELITES,you said so yourselves,you all are Ist world ministers, so your radar screens MUST be able to scan for all distances, be it short, medium or long term!
If this is the typical excuses, then, MOH can come and tell us,’not enough doctors and nurses,never mind, we plan for long term,we are recruiting more doctors and nurses’
The other ministries can also fellow suit and give this type of crappy excuses!
Can the citizens then tell the govt.we have not enough money to pay our taxes,we want to pay at one go 10 years(longterm) down the road?
Affordable now?
With the trend that HDB is showing, it will certainly not be affordable in the future.
They are just lazy pigs.
They will soon tell you, might as well stay in a hotel since they are building so many and at 30 an hour, it is affordable. How many hours do you want to sleep? They would proabably ask you.
With due respect Ms Grace Fu, since you are drawing millions and cannot resolve or provide any immediate corrective actions to the mid term housing demand in spite of the plentiful government resources and elites.
Please Grace-Fu-lly resign and step down and let others whom are more capable to perform take over and provide better services and leadership. Your abilities speak for itself. In the private sector, incapable in terms of expected performance would always mean the “pink slip”.
THE QUALITY OF REPLY MOVES UP THE FOOD CHAIN.
—————————————
http://www.temasekreview.com/2009/12/28/hdb-reply-to-ms-aurora-longs-letter-on-conversion-of-two-hdb-flats-in-toa-payoh-into-worker-dorms/comment-page-1/#comment-53148
[3 Jan , 7.18pm posting]
………………HDB Deputy Directors damn good for giving crappy n unconvincing reply, like the below,
……………………..AND HDB yet to solve the 2 LUP problems.
http://app.reach.gov.sg/reach/YourSay/YourDiscussionCorner/tabid/117/ptid/414/page/2147483647/threadid/2848/forumtype/posts/Default.aspx
Extracted from
http://www.todayonline.com/Voices/EDC091126-0000059/Direct-lift-access-not-always-possible–HDB
Clementi LUP reply from HDB -
” We empathise with Mr Lim’s situation, and seek his understanding on the LUP solution implemented for his block.”
” The blue stickers on the new lifts indicate that the lift car is wheelchair friendly as it comes with handrail bars, and the doors are wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair. It does not suggest that full barrier-free accessibility has been achieved. ”
Extracted from
http://www.temasekreview.com/2009/11/30/eunos-residents-protest-against-hdbs-lift-upgrading-programme/
Eunos LUP reply from HDB -
” The diagram, explained Mr Chee, is schematic and not drawn to scale. ”
[In reply to why the lift shaft was built blocking most of the front door and one bedroom unit, when in a brochure given out to residents, the lift shaft had appeared different on the floor plan.]
why they cannot predict?? Ministers are paid million dollars for their top talent. Now they said they cannot predict then they should get a pay cut as it just show that they not infact not very talented.
So why are we paying a fortune teller $3,000,000/- a year for when his forecasts are NEVER right?
Just look at GIC’s latest financial debacle!!!!
Pay $2 to the street-side fortune teller, you might get a more accurate prediction of short-term housing demand.
guys,
you all have been complaining about the ministers, MPs etc and yet you vote for them at each election.
what a pathetic lot. do the right thing next election and stop moaning. The govt keeps dishing out more of the same because you give them the signal that you like what you’re getting.
for all the property owners that are usually taken in by the MIW nonsense that you will be very well off with the asset inflation, I have this to say.
Whatever you gain from your property value increase, your children will pay it back many times over.
I am saying this as a property owner and I am very very concerned for my children.
Singaporeans – if we keep this party or allow them a 2/3rd majority for the next election and if opposition are disallowed to check and rectify all these ‘wrongs’ we are doomed for good.
I was shocked that our mininsters are paid salaries by the millions and for paying them (which is of course whose money but tax payer’s money) this is what u get.
Singaporeans are slowly and surely becoming second class citizens and sooner or later we may find ourselves in a corner and wonder what or how it could all happen.
In fact it is really happening lar.
Vote and vote this shenanigans out
Why are we still paying millions dollars of tax payers’ money to these monkey brains senior ministers ?
Have they never hear of the word “planning” ?? Or are they too busy attending their French cooking lessons in Paris ???
A moron can do a better job than them and at a cheaper salary too !!
it was a lie.
This bitch mentioned once that HDB flats will nolonger be cheap.
She was expecting the increase in price.
One more reason to flatten a GRC, we are getting rid of Pigs-In-White for all their confessed incompetence, one after another – DESPITE RECEIVING CONSTANT GOOD POLICY ADVICE FROM COMPETENT TOP CIVIL SERVANTS.
Any other “O’ levels MPs – elected or unelected, of no scholastic track will do a lot better. At least, they don’t depend on fortune-telling to lead us ahead in the darkness of unknown and constant fear.
TIME TO CHANGE.
grace and mah please give us singaporeans a break. do not tell us you need lead time. if you cannot plan ahead then don’t sit in your position and find excuses for your under-performances. It is sad that you are still drawing huge salaries. regards
Oh, my God, it is gf, one of the strongest mouth-piece of the most despicable miw the DOM, her father is jf, the former press secretary of the DOM, (source of information is from st) so like father like daughter what can you expect from this idiotic “O” level NINE A1 nerd. (Please note: She has been pre-selected by the DOM to enroll as mandarin into the LEE dynasty carefully crafts and carves out by the DOM some 40 over years ago since the day she has been born)
By the way, in order to butter-up to the DOM, she led the charge in attacking opposition mp cst mercilessly when she took-on political office holder as the ms for mnd so, I opine that we should not spear any mercy on her when scrutinizing the ministry under her charge!
### WHAT? It is difficult to predict the short-term demand! Why she never consults her “GOD-father”, the DOM, whom proclaimed loudly and vociferously that; by taking $3.something annual remuneration package; he is there JUST TO FORECAST and not doing much works! ###
**** May be in gf’s dictionary “PERDICT” is an antonym than a synonym to “FORECAST”! I opine that she is the by-product of the mediocre educational-system of uniquely Singapore than the meritorious educational-system often proclaimed loudly and shamelessly by the idiotic lhl! What an idiotic imbecile of million-dollar nerd? ****
Last but not least, by listening to her parliamentary speeches, she has very poor command of English when compares to other scholastic nerds under the DOM’s charge!
A million-dollar nerd traveled all the way to Tianjing by SIA FIRST CLASS and STAYED IN FIVE STAR HOTEL, just to “UNDERSTAND” the progress of the eco-city, what a waste of Taxpayers’ money????
Hard to predict? I tell you what definitely WILL happen. Prices will go up. PRs will jump on the bandwagon, hey! money making opportunity! Demand will keep rising.. It is not beneficial for the common Singaporean, why? Because after we sell at high price, we need to buy at higher price. We are staying here, the PRs can go back home. They are only concerned that the price will keep going up, which it will due to PAP’s open door to foreigners policy, bunch of sorry-assed bootlickers…
The demand will come from the PRs which BTW, we TRUE singaporeans, do not see as citizens so why on fuck’s earth can they purchase PUBLIC housing?
If HDB implements a law that prevents PRs from selling at a higher price, aka sell it at purchase price for example, (note:It will not happen, they’re making too much money and furthermore note how the govt is PRO-FOREIGNER. If you’re speaking on behalf of citizens, you’re screwed.) Then, the Demand from PRs will go down, but the demand for housing won’t immediately rise bacause of the locals. The prices will fluctuate till it eventually reaches low enough for it to be “affordable” for Singaporeans.
There, now that was SOOO hard to predict.
They bring in so much ppl, obviously those ppl need place to stay right? It looked like an obvious intention, now that there’s a demand, they can continue to take advantage and jack up the prices. there are thousands of SCs WAITING for a house from hdb… and its ALWAYS over-subscribed! and we can’t blame them is it?
Come on, they are suppose to prioritize US, WE are the ones that NEED those houses. They can control the market, whether they want to or not. Just like how other policies in this country.
We’re the country that has most foreigners staying in private housing, and now they even want our public housing. And some of us the citizens, born, study, work, grow up here, don’t even have the chance to choose our flats (all hail ballot system), and still have to work so hard to pay the (bopian)increasing housing prices.
Yeah right, we forgive them for “overlooking” the situation.
Thank God for the internet! Finally we get to read and say what is really happening on the ground. For donkey years these fat cats fed us haplessly with gloss over nicities and suckered us into voting for them election after election. My next vote will make a difference to their charmed lives, I guarantee you. Singaporeans have awakened!
TY GR8 more is better right! Good info