Singapore has one of the highest home ownership percentages in the world – 88% in 2020. One of the key reasons is that the majority of the residential properties are public housing and are priced affordably for home owners. The Retiree’s Dilemma: asset-rich and cash-poor Although most home owners feel more secured to have their own roof over their heads, not many realize that this also means the value locked in the homes could not be easily utilised when retirement arrives. This creates an asset-rich and cash-poor situation – we still need a place to stay when we retire but we also need cash to meet our living expenses when we lose our working income. According to the CPF Trends statistics in 2020, about 54% of the CPF members aged 55 were able to meet the Basic Retirement Sum. That is to say half of the cohort didn’t meet the retirement amount!...