Cost of living calculations not making sense

[Kryptos]

i guess you dont have kids? single person working with 3k income and 1k+ rental can be tight but not impossible if no children.

i have a friend who came from malaysia to work in singapore earning about same income. he got a family with 2 children, single working and rented a hdb flat for 700+. after few months he decided to move out and stay in malaysia but still work in singapore. that shows how tight it can be.

It would appear that I would be earning above the average if I do find employment so it would ease the calculation a bit.

Now for the next question, what would be minimum amount that would need to be spent on rental for a decent condo. Currently i stay 25km from my work place and it takes me an hour to get there in traffic so I am used to traveling to work.

[youdunsay]

Kryptos,

Most Singaporean Families are a MINIMUM of dual income families. A high majority of the actual may have 3 or more Full Time Income Earners under the same roof. Stop to consider......

A Single cannot afford to rent (couldn't 5 years ago either) due to rental costs, They cannot afford to buy as they are young so haven't worked long enough to build up a sizeable downpayment. They are not allowed to buy and HDB Flat if they are single unless they are over 35. That means most still live at home until they are close to 30 at least. Average marriage age here is now around 33 I believe. Now take a set of Husband and wife in their mid 40's with two grown up children. The parents, each earning 3~5K a month and the two kids earning say 1.3 & 1.7/mo. This could amount to around 11K/mo per household. Now you have to also realize that Singaporeans/PR can utilize their CPF in their ordinary accounts to pay their mortgage payments as well. This makes the cash outlay even smaller. (although they are contributing 20% towards the CPF the employer also contributes a sum equal to 14.5% of the salary as well. That means a 3000/mo salary has 1035/mo going into CPF of which 70% can be used to offset any mortgage payments if the mortgage is from HDB.

Now, how to compete on equal terms? You can't. Also, you are competing with Filipinos, Indians, Malaysian who also have the experience but not the Western Consumption habits. They will happily live in HDB Flats whereas a high majority of Western Expats shun these as they feel it's beneath them. Having said that though, due to the rapidly escalating rental prices, a lot have been forced to do just that though.

I was an early adopter though, I'm a western PR (Yank) and I own an HDB flat that only has about 5 years left on the mortgage now.

Sorry for the length of this but it does explain it......

SMS

I am completely with SMS. Kids in Singapore are usually brought up by their grannies until they are young adults (my granny still lives with us) ready to be the third or fourth breadwinner. From my circle of friends living in HDB (some condos and landed property), we all have to work part-time to get our pocket money (my dad will ask some for contributing to the household expense).

My house (HDB) still half with a 12 decent year on the mortgage so being young adults now (me and my sibling) we have to work to pay off the house and household expenses. Bleak future ahead.

[MikeDirnt]

i guess you dont have kids? single person working with 3k income and 1k+ rental can be tight but not impossible if no children.

i have a friend who came from malaysia to work in singapore earning about same income. he got a family with 2 children, single working and rented a hdb flat for 700+. after few months he decided to move out and stay in malaysia but still work in singapore. that shows how tight it can be.

It would appear that I would be earning above the average if I do find employment so it would ease the calculation a bit.

Now for the next question, what would be minimum amount that would need to be spent on rental for a decent condo. Currently i stay 25km from my work place and it takes me an hour to get there in traffic so I am used to traveling to work.

oh dont worry singapore is at most 25 to 35 km far from each other. and at most you need to spend 1 hour to travel in this highly accessible country.

i dont stay in condo but i heard rent can be 1.5k to 2k per unit. dont forget the price will keep on increasing. thats why i said you will lose out if you keep on renting. you are paying huge amount and not getting a piece of the property.