Smaller home for all in the future

Developers are downsizing apartments to find ways to keep overall prices within the reach of buyers. Experts say overall prices of up to $1.5 million are the most popular among first-time buyers and second-time investors in the light of the property cooling measures that have tightened loan limits.

Second-time buyers with an existing housing loan, for instance, will be subject to a 50 per cent loan-to-value ratio and must fork out a minimum cash down-payment of 25 per cent under the most recent January curbs.

Some experts add that while the Government has clamped down on developers building shoebox units, the more worrying trend could be the size crunch in the two- and three-bedroom apartment types instead. It's actually reasonable for one person to live in a shoebox unit of 500 sq ft. There should be more concern over three-bedroom units shrinking to as small as 600 to 700 sq ft instead.

With the high cost of land, it is "hard to fight the situation" of smaller homes as many Singaporean might not be able to afford the large sizes of previous three-bedroom units at current prices.

In the past, a three-bedroom unit would more likely be 1,500 sq ft in size, while most are now around 1,000 to 1,200 sq ft. However these flats look large compared with the offerings at Urban Vista, next to Tanah Merah MRT station. The  two-bedroom units of 549 sq ft and three-bedders of 850 sq ft. The 32-unit Treescape in Telok Kurau also has micro three-bedders starting from 603 sq ft.

Sizes are changing fast as developers grapple with the opposing pulls of higher land costs and demand for affordable homes to fit buyers' tight budgets. The easiest solution is to build more compact homes, it seems. Sorry folks that's the trend now!!!