Many Singaporeans are tight down with household debts. Among all others are housing. With skyrocketed housing prices nowadays, many will be more struggling to pay off the housing loans as compared to last time. Moreover, the loan tenure will be longer than last time.
A few days ago, I met a friend who we chatted for a while. He told me that he had already paid off the big ticket item - HDB Loan. Next, I asked him how many years did he use to pay off the loan. He told me 7 years. Not bad isn't it?
I was pondering how did he manage to clear his loan so fast. He told that he and his wife had already paid off half the purchase price through their CPF when they first bought the flat. The remaining half will still be financed through their monthly CPF; and this took them 7 years to settle the balance.
Both of them are earning an average of $5k++ salary. Their monthly CPF contributions are around $1k for each of them. It is possible to pay off the housing loan as long as you are not buying it at skyrocketed prices.
My friend gotten a good deal for his 4 rooms flat in the central area for only $220k 7 years ago. Now his flat has appreciated to close to $500k.
He is a happy man now as he is debt free. Now his money can be channelled for the family, consumption purchases, hobby, etc. No need to set aside money for housing loan anymore.
Have you paid off the housing loan?
Good food for thought topic.
The question was "How long DID you take to pay..." I think a more appropriate question for most of us would be: "How long ARE you taking to pay..."
For me I still have a loooong way to go. Probably my kids, who are below 5 now, will be in their late teens before I finish paying. And I'm not even the slowest. I know many highly educated couples who are uni graduates with post-grad degrees these days will pay till they are close to 60 or beyond. And no, not for condos. Just so we are on the right track, it's for their HDB flats.
I think the whole public housing system was in topsy-turvy back in 2007 and the later part. Actually, it still is in some sort of a mess now. Back in 2007, I was so naive and thought, it's public housing, sure can find something suitable. But I was so darn wrong. That's when I got to be more aware of local politics and its "hidden truths".
Wanted to buy resale initially. Super expensive S$600,000 before COV for a 5-year old flat! Mature estate but not even near central location. I was like Huh???? Guess I was so out of touch with HDB pricing. Ok reduce standard. Take smaller flats a bit out of the way. No luck. Small 4-room flats in secluded area already at a high S$400k. Better 4-rooms mostly in excess of S$500k.
I thought to myself: "I know there will be inflation and all that. But surely the jump in price couldn't be so drastic right?" Ok, time to look for new and leftover flat.
Both me and my spouse are born Singaporeans. We failed balloting 4 times flat back then. We know of one guy whom we chatted with who failed 8 times. No kidding.
Asked around: Why is URA/HDB not building more BTO flats? There's a huge demand right??? News reports back then had many complain how flats were so expensive beyond affordability and why there was such a long waiting queue for them. Some keyboard warriors said We are whiners. But they didn't know what we had been going through. Talk was very cheap for them. We were ranked at one point over 5,000th place among more than 10,000 people who were balloting for a miserable 300+ leftover flats. No luck of course.
What was exasperating is that instead of listening and really doing something, the ex-MND minister Mah Bow Tan (MBT) came out to say there was nothing they could do. It was due to "market forces". And instead of building more BTOs, they continued to build DBSS flats (now defunct) where they conveniently sold the land to the private developers to design HDB flats like condos, the private guys jacked up the prices sky high (highest was S$880,000!!!) and gave owners low quality fittings inside.
MBT then went on to tell us, You guys should be happy. I let your assets (Is HDB really an asset for most of us???) become profitable. Why are you all complaining?" Then at another time, we were told HDB flats should not be seen as an investment but basic housing. The discrepancy in statements got me really confused.
To add salt to the wound, he and the other ministers kept repeating to us HDB flats are affordable.
Then when the new MND minister Khaw Boon Wan took over, he didn't abolish the DBSS projects immediately. In fact, they were planning for more. It was in 2011. People were still complaining: Where are the BTOs??? Why are we waiting so long? Why are resale flats so expensive?
And then, another exasperating thing this new guy said was "DBSS is not HDB". Huh??? That's not true. DBSS IS HDB. They just let the private developers do the main job, including the pricing but HDB controls it after that. Then he went on to say: "If HDB flats are expensive, you can walk away. No one is forcing you to buy." WHOA!!! At this point, I was even more confused. Aren't these guys supposed to help solve something as basic as public housing?
Cut long story short, only after everyone "cry mother, cry father" that those ministers woke up to reality and now, they suddenly began to build massive numbers of BTOs. The whole "ecosystem" is again thrown into disarray. Now resale flats are losing money. I wonder where that MBT is and will he eat back his earlier statement that he was trying to help our "assets" make money?
Though I was confused by the whole experience, when it came to GE2011, it was VERY CLEAR to me (like looking through a focused macro lens!) on which box I should place the "X" in.