By Paul Ho (Guest Contributor)
The numerous property cooling regulations imposed by the MND, URA, MAS and IRAS have done much to curb the speculative fever in the property market, but regulations to stop the latent demand are futile. In short, if there are 20,000 people needing houses and only 10,000 houses, then prices will surely go up. Brute force measures to artificially restrict 10,000 people from changing their minds to stop buying or defer buying will only momentarily solve the problem.
A brief background to Singapore’s housing woes
It’s not clear if the Singapore government is sincere in wanting to solve these problems given the way government land sales are structured, where the chief valuer lets the bid price meet an undisclosed minimum before releasing the land out for tender.
By the time the prices of land parcels rise to meet the minimum bid price the Singapore government ...
