Articles:
Housing Affordability and Upward Mobility from Public to Private Housing in Singapore Authors: Seow Eng Ong Start Page: 49 Abstract: This
paper examines the ability of buyers to afford and upgrade to private
housing using the experience in land scarce Singapore as a case study. The
concepts of the “threshold buyer” and “threshold upgrader” are
introduced to construct an operational inter-temporal model of
affordability and upward mobility, taking into consideration income,
mortgage rates, prices of public housing flats and the
legislative/financing framework in Singapore. The theoretical private
property price computed by the upward mobility model is the lower bound
dictated by affordability and cash outlay considerations such that the
buyer/upgrader is no better or worse off arising from changes in the
relevant factors over time. The model is empirically tested to evaluate
the theoretical underpinnings as well as the ability of the model to
predict private property price. Finally, the paper examines the
implications for housing ownership policy in a wider context. |