"Affordable HDB Housing", Myth or Fact? - Part 2

A continuation of yesterday's post on the affordability of HDB flats...

Found the following table in today's TODAY and I took a picture of it immediately. The previous post looks at how "affordable" a resale flat is. Today, we will look at a BRAND NEW flat instead.

Let's do the maths again....

HDB launched 4 BTOs on Monday ion areas Seng Kang, Ponggol, Hougang and Sembawang. To have a fair comparison to yesterday, we shall consider only Seng Kang. The prices of the BTO units from SK are :

Let's take the average price of a 4rm flat to be 328K (median price) and the household income/CPF contribution to be as follows :

Assuming the couple gets 40K Additional CPF Housing Grant and that they also had 60K in their CPF before buying the flat, the finalised loan amount will come up to 228K. Below shows their monthly instalment....

913 of their 920 (OA Contribution) monthly goes to HDB, leaving 7 miserable dollars in their OA. Multiply this by 30yrs and we get 2,520 (7x12x30). Even if we throw in compound interest and CPF Top-ups by the gahmen, how much would the couple have at age 55? 20K? 50K?

Do note that this 20K or 50K is among the 2 of them, which means each one probably has 25K at max. Please tell me several things...

1. With the Minimum Sum hitting 120K by 2013, how will this couple ever be able to draw out money earned over the last 30yrs to enjoy their twilight years?

2. Of what use is it to us to have slogged 30yrs for a house, only to have "saved" 50K in our retirement fund?

3. The motto of HDB is "Providing Affordable, Quality Homes". I've no doubt about the Quality part. But I seriously doubt the Affordable part!! Is taking the life-long hard-earned money of the citizens away your definition of "Affordable"?

I'm not against home ownership, in fact, SO and I promised each other that we will definitely become home-owners together, somehow.... But I shudders each time I look at the market. Why? This is why...

1. With such prices, I no longer dreamed of being able to sell my house 10yrs later for a profit. In fact, I would be thankful if I can even break-even.

2. My kids, nieces and nephews, by the time they are settling down and looking to buy a house, how much would that be? 1million for a 4rm flat? With Mr Horse in place, I wouldn't bet against it.

I used to not really understand the housing issues come election time. But now that I'm looking to get a place of my own, I became fully aware of the existing issues and why so many peoples are making so much noise!

With my earnest hope and prayers, residents of Tampines GRC, please DO THE RIGHT THING and spare our future generations the shit that we are currently facing.

Thank you.

PS : according to the table from TODAY, the couple will need to fork out cash! That's an even worse scenario than the one I've based my maths on....