By Gerald Tay (guest contributor)

In a recent blog post, fellow contributor Property Soul shared her rules on buying a property you can afford, what she called the “3-3-5” rule. A Propwise.sg reader JC wrote in to comment that Rule #3 (the purchase price of the property should not exceed five times your annual income) was unrealistic and overly conservative. In this article I’d like to share my views on some of his comments (which I’ve extracted in italics below).

The views in this article are entirely of my own. They do not represent the views of either Property Soul or Propwise.sg. Any feedback should be directed to me gerald@crei-academy.com.

Is the 3-3-5 rule unrealistic?

JC: In a nutshell, the 3-3-5 rule is skewed towards an unrealistic scenario which is unlikely to happen in Singapore (for Rule #3). We need to be realistic about the current ...