HDB capping sublets to foreigners ...

[zzm9980]

http://www.singapolitics.sg/news/new-re ... foreigners

They're going to introduce racial quotas on foreigners renting to avoid "racial enclaves" and cap the max lease at 18 months...

Rents are going to go up...

[Wd40]

Thanks for the link ZZM, just want to mention though, that its not racial quotas but a blanket 10% quota for all foreigners.

I guess we are screwed man! Tampines and Simei has very high concentration of rented out flats because of the changi business park and rents are quite high here already. I guess we will need to shift to woodlands now

But 18 month leases, I wonder now will agents now ask for 0.75 month rent for 18 month lease as agent fee? How about deposits will owners ask 1.5 months rent as deposit

[nakatago]

It's hard enough already looking for places to live and now they're gonna make it harder and even more expensive.

So, yes, their plan of driving foreigners out sure will work.

[Wd40]

It's hard enough already looking for places to live and now they're gonna make it harder and even more expensive.

So, yes, their plan of driving foreigners out sure will work.

Just noticed your location. So you are another non resident mod(per OSOD)?

[JR8]

http://www.singapolitics.sg/news/new-re ... foreigners

They're going to introduce racial quotas on foreigners renting to avoid "racial enclaves" and cap the max lease at 18 months...

Rents are going to go up...

Considering the majority race are all immigrants, this 'racial enclave' thing is quite amusing.

SG is Malay. The Brits got there before the cinas. Who has the moral right to control who?

[JR8]

And DAK the rationale behind capping a tenancy at 18 months?

In my experience, tenants tend to think on a 3+ year window. 18 months, and you MUST move, forget it!

Do they want SG to be unattractive to FT? Because that is what they're achieving.

Jeez, I'm not sure if I want to go back to SG (and I will be, in a few months time), because everything says, I'm not welcome, and if not, I'm hated and must be 'controlled' and taxed.

Weird.

[nakatago]

http://www.singapolitics.sg/news/new-re ... foreigners

They're going to introduce racial quotas on foreigners renting to avoid "racial enclaves" and cap the max lease at 18 months...

Rents are going to go up...

Considering the majority race are all immigrants, this 'racial enclave' thing is quite amusing.

SG is Malay. The Brits got there before the cinas. Who has the moral right to control who?

Hypocrites. Like white 'murikans and white ozzies.

[x9200]

And DAK the rationale behind capping a tenancy at 18 months?

In my experience, tenants tend to think on a 3+ year window. 18 months, and you MUST move, forget it!

They say the period of approval is 18th months so I believe you can just get another one after this period and not necessary move out. Probably at this point they will check the quota and if ok, you could stay longer.
What is confusing is they said "sub-letting" but I guess they consider the owners to be the tenants

[zzm9980]

And DAK the rationale behind capping a tenancy at 18 months?

In my experience, tenants tend to think on a 3+ year window. 18 months, and you MUST move, forget it!

They say the period of approval is 18th months so I believe you can just get another one after this period and not necessary move out. Probably at this point they will check the quota and if ok, you could stay longer.
What is confusing is they said "sub-letting" but I guess they consider the owners to be the tenants

Yes, but i wonder how many will not be reapproved?

The current semi-srandard two year lease plus one year "extension" at "market rates" seems to be based upon HDBs three year approval. Those of us in our lease befire that renewal option have our landlords by the balls. If they dont accept our renewal, they have less than 12 months left in their approval to move a tenant in on a short lease. This is especially true in foreigner heavy areas like where i live, or where wd40 was talking about.

Actually, Tampines and Simei were the first places that came to my mind when i heard about this as the spots theyre probably explicitly targetting.

[JR8]

And DAK the rationale behind capping a tenancy at 18 months?

In my experience, tenants tend to think on a 3+ year window. 18 months, and you MUST move, forget it!

They say the period of approval is 18th months so I believe you can just get another one after this period and not necessary move out. Probably at this point they will check the quota and if ok, you could stay longer.
What is confusing is they said "sub-letting" but I guess they consider the owners to be the tenants

The flat 'owner' is a leaseholder. They own a lease on the property (they don't own the property itself: They are a tenant, albeit a long-term one).

The statute law that applies is the law of 'Landlord and tenant'

QED.

[movingtospore]

And now apparently they're going to make sure new flats are somehow 30% cheaper. How they're going to manage that is going to be interesting. What about the poor suckers who are going to lose that equity on existing places if indeed the government is somehow able to magically force prices down?

I suppose killing the economy with a bunch of crazy new policies will help...

[sundaymorningstaple]

And now apparently they're going to make sure new flats are somehow 30% cheaper. How they're going to manage that is going to be interesting. What about the poor suckers who are going to lose that equity on existing places if indeed the government is somehow able to magically force prices down?

I suppose killing the economy with a bunch of crazy new policies will help...

Nothing magical about it. All the government is going to do is make less profits. The land that they are using has been acquired by the government by force. They paid little for the land and they make the valuations for the land when computing the costing of building the flats. All they have to do is use the original land costs when computing the costs and Bob's yer Uncle! 30% of the costs has gone. Or they just subsidize 30% more. Either way the result is the same.

Once they have gotten ahead of the game, then the surplus of empty flats, keeping new one coming on line as a rate that keeps up the surplus of finished flats will mean no more 3 years waiting periods for new families to get the keys to their flats. Once that happens, the resale market will take a nosedive and those holding those flats will end up in negative equity (on paper).

The problem, however, isn't the negative equity as it's only on paper. But what will happen when, like the US, the Job bubble bursts because companies cannot get manpower and go bust. It's the Singaporeans who are going to ultimately suffer as they will lose their jobs, no jobs to go to and then will have a hard time meeting their mortgage payments. Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae come to mind. The whoe US banking industry comes to mind. Then they will really have a problem.

I still stay my predictions of 7 years ago, are going to come to pass. On the 40th birthday of the Country (7 years ago) I said, then, that in 40 more years Singapore would be just a footnote in history. I still believe that. That is also why I'm still a PR after all these years. It was an experiment by LKY that was doomed to failure from the start. Without natural resources of it's own, it is only a matter of time before all the neighbours adopt that which works and discards the rest and marches past the little Red Dot in the future.

[Wd40]

The funny thing about this 10% quota is that PRs are also clubbed along with foreigners. So in this "us vs them" conflict that has been going on of late, I wonder where PRs find themselves, us, them or something even worse than them

[Wd40]

And now apparently they're going to make sure new flats are somehow 30% cheaper. How they're going to manage that is going to be interesting. What about the poor suckers who are going to lose that equity on existing places if indeed the government is somehow able to magically force prices down?

I suppose killing the economy with a bunch of crazy new policies will help...

I dont think think this will happen. The gahmen has always always erred on the side of caution. By caution, I mean, they wouldnt take even the slightest risk of the prices actually falling. What they want is prices to stay flat or increase only marginally.

They know very well that majority of SGns are home owners and the 60% who voted them last time are in all probability those that own homes. The last thing they would want is to piss off those people.

How I know this?
Here's what the minister said this today, in one of the local bird cage liners:

"Most people actually do not have a housing problem. But a minority do, and they are serious housing problems," he said. "So we need to tackle them, but in a way that is not at the expense of homeowners."

Google for "Khaw looking into suggestions to bring down prices of new HDB flats"

[Mi Amigo]

The funny thing about this 10% quota is that PRs are also clubbed along with foreigners. So in this "us vs them" conflict that has been going on of late, I wonder where PRs find themselves, us, them or something even worse than them

From many of the remarks I've seen, we're all labelled 'foreign trash', PR or no PR. In the xenophobic hysteria that's being whipped up, we're all considered fair game for abuse it seems. Sadly, subtle nuances and reasoned debate appear to be beyond the capabilities of a great many people here.