HDB’s tough task

This week in Property

• Addressing affordability versus buying power
• Land betterment charges come down for non-landed residential use
• Billion dollar deals, and more assets on the market

To market, to market

The Housing and Development Board has an admirable, if unenviable, mission. How does it balance the pertinent need to keep public housing affordable, with market forces that push those with buying power towards higher prices? 

By several measures, prices of HDB flats are comfortably affordable to most. Yet more and more resale deals make the headlines for busting the S$1 million threshold, prompting outcry and fuelling concerns on affordability.