Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Protected Singapore for being a tiny one

It is good to know a country's housing market when you are trying to buy a holiday home or when you want to run a property business abroad. Britain is a really flexible country to buy and sell property. It should not be a big deal so long as you have enough money and a property solicitor. But Singapore is not like that. There are a lot of restrictions to become a home owner. It is understandable that it is a small country and it needs full protection. Otherwise, rich countries will take over it in the name of new landlord. If you read the following piece of news from Singapore, you may get some idea about what is going on in that South East Asian nation.

HDB has decided to do away with the sibling scheme from Monday onwards. This means that unmarried Singaporeans and PR siblings whose parents live abroad will not be allowed to buy new or resale HDB flats.

This scheme covered siblings (brothers and sisters) who are unmarried and whose parents are not living in Singapore to buy new or resale flats. Currently, only unmarried individuals over 35 years old can buy from the resale market (which is another reason to get married in Singapore other than for love or money).
This decision has been made in light of the ease of renting single rooms or whole HDB units. Also, HDB has found out that unmarried Singaporean or PR siblings who buy new or resale HDB flats have only made up a fraction of the total HDB transactions, so it is unnecessary to continue with this scheme.

This only applies to transactions from Monday, 21st February, onwards. If you think you’d be affected by this abolishment, check out our 'HDB For Rent' section!
Source: