Ghettoes In Singapore

I am recovering nicely from my spinal fracture though I can't walk, sit, stand or lie down for long. In fact on exertion, my lower back hurts and I am often breathless. So many things have happened the past week and I am going to try to summarise all my observations here. If not, I am just going to concentrate on the property market and pen the rest in another blog.

First, the property market. And I am referring to only the Public Housing ones.

Valueing a property should be an objective and neutral process. Seeing how private real estate marketers are also valuers, I question if this function can seriously be compromised. I mean how objective can I be if I am both selling and valueing a property?

The age of the development, its precinct, location, the exterior condition of the material property and its interior are all factors. The insides is in itself a class all its own, considering the property's lay-out, design and physical condition.

Add nearby amenities such as schools, eateries, shopping malls, entertainment complexes, sports facilities, libraries and transportation and you have as many possible tangible yardsticks for not only measuring the value of one unit from the next but even one estate from another.

Unfortunately I can see few of these being applied in the valuation or marketing processes.

The Walk-In-Selection , surprisingly, has moved into the realm of not only marketing brand new units but also the "Main Upgrading Program" units as well. It is good the Housing Development Board is undertaking the sales directly and this is not relegated to the open market where the real estate agents jack up or down the prices as befit the circumstances.

However in the case of the MUP ones, the conditions for sale should be treated as re-sale ones. That means opening up the sale to other categories of applicants not covered in the new sales category.

Otherwise the Single Singapore Citizen or even the Joint Singapore Singles are left with the second-hand market units, usually in "slum-like" or "ghetto" condition. This is especially true for singles who want a smaller or zero liable and affordable unit like a 3-roomer. These units are in such short supply and are usually located in aged and dilapidated estates, sometimes in far-flung and remote corners of the island, lying right alongside properties leased to our guest workers from Asia. And they are priced ridiculously high too.

Just for illustration purposes, a MUP unit under the WIS retails for $85K in the West or a brand new one for $116 in the North-Eastern. An aging and run-down unit , although located on a high floor and at the corner, goes for anything like $128K to $175 K or even higher. This is almost comparable to a unit selling under the MUP. How skewed can prices get?

It is really sad that many of these ghettoes have the potential to be the great estates they can be. The design of the apartment buildings is promising, with well thought out lay-out and unique linkways. Moreover it is exclusive with only two units to a floor with a nice service balcony fronting the living hall.

It is the electrical switch boxes and pipes clumsily hovering above or clinging onto the walls, the slabs of gaping holes in the columns near the roof-top, the stalactites dripping paintwork, the spalling concrete, the soiled and dirtied screed staircases, the rusting and peeling metal railings, the charred lift floors with "loan sharks" graffiti sprawled across its walls and the algaed facade overgrown with creepers and crawling with bugs that make the whole place uninhabitable. The rubbish chutes somehow turn inwards into the central walkway, adding on to the almost unsanitary and unhygienic living conditions, littered with rubbish.

So there, I take back what I said about us being a First World nation infrastructurally. Perhaps partially? And I ain't gonna throw away my money like that investng in a piece of junk property, unlivable and sleazy.

I am personally happy and contented with a 65-70 sq m space easily cleaned and maintained where I do not have to fork out huge liability expenses month after month and yet it yields me enough cash proceeds for savings or investments and future expenditure or venture.

Besides, the secondary market is opened for sale to Singapore Permanent Residents and this makes citizenship no different from permanent residency for singles. Unless this implies that singles are any lesser as citizens than their married or foreign counterparts. And unmarried siblings may not necessarily want to live together under the Orphan Scheme.

Many of the enterprising SPRs and our very own native home-owners have sought to rent out many of these units to a variety of foreign visitors. They have bought units for rental income or for holding out for a Selective En-Bloc Redevelopment Sales.

According to HDB's subletting rules, there can be as many as 8 occupiers crammed into a house. Long lines of laundry and mud-caked working boots snake along the corridor. And this is happening amidst a residential estate. Doesn't this detract from the overall estate aesthethics and shouldn't HDB differentiate between residential residence and non-residential residence? And thus allot living quarters accordingly?

I am not sure if HDB can site them in Tuas when the Boon Lay extension is up and running, much closer to their workplaces in the industrial estates there.

Speaking of which I have highlighted to the transport ministry how we can join the furthermost terminal dots on the rail map to connect the western part of Singapore to its southerm, eastern and north-eastern brethen, forming one seamless, peripheral and express railway.

This will truly be integrated and inter-connected commute, saving time bypassing the mish-mash of network criss-crossing the inner core of the island. MOT can name this the North-South-East-West Hemispherical Line (NSEW HL).

Coming up soon in my next blog ! Observations on life during the last week.