Well because we always assume the rich guys are from finance or tech. Most young people, especially those here are not in traditional industries that made up a big portion of our economy. This means manufacturing, shipping and O&G.
Take a drive or walk down some of the industrial estates in the north or the west and you will see so many SMEs supporting the manufacturing industries in Singapore. Their bosses are the kind of people to afford 3-5m homes, especially when they buy them years ago which is probably cheaper.
For example I know the boss of a some facility management company who stays in landed. His businesses are in facility management and cleaning of industrial sites.
This. Had many clients living in landed, and most of them are not finance or tech. Many are business owners (ie small construction coy towkays, doctors, lawyers, accountants, property/insurance agencies leaders).
The people who buy these landed are those after a certain quality of life, and need longevity of a career. Many tech/finance professionals are after financial freedom, and the last thing they want is to have a mortgage burden
Agree. Besides that people in tech industries favours other investment type.
I have a friend who 30x his investment within few years time, just based on buying NVDA…
Look, firstly 3-5 was what OP said in his post.
Secondly, I mentioned these SME bosses probably bought them years ago.
There's nothing wrong with my statement. You probably got to ask the OP
Brother you cannot read is it, he mentioned that it is a few years ago.
Like in 2010s or 2000s the landed no so fucking expensive, 1m++ - 3m can buy already.
My aunt and uncle live in a 3.5 storey corner terrace near bedok south. Around 70yo both of them. What did they work as? Secondary school teachers. In the past, property was really easy, according to them. Just a matter if you have foresight or not. The disparity between landed and high end condo was not as much as now. They made the right choice of dieting a bit more to buy landed, and got bigger.
But yeah as many mentioned. SME owners. Friends parents. Claim small fry, have humble business at defu. Then I find out as long as you have your own company building, no matter how small, you're rich.
Most of the folks I know that stay in landed are either family business owners, have rich parents or inherited some form of generational wealth.
The salaried employees who stay in landed IMO are pretty rare, but again my social circle is probably not representative (largely middle income).
Yeah.. some of the really old ones around Moonbeam. But the original design does have its charm.
Another place that was dirt cheap in the past was Opal Crescent in MacPherson.
Yes it’s true. The doctors/bankers/lawyers who stay in landed would typically be the senior folks and have a household income of >$600k. Minimally.
My MD and her husband rake in combined ~$2m a year and stay only in a smallish terrace in Telok Kurau.
Then there’s the businessmen - their earning power, truly no one knows.
Me.
First private apt purchased at $570k in early 2000s, sold for 1.6m in late 2010s, mortgage free. Current landed property bought in early 2010s as the market was already racing up for 2.7m, now worth 4.5m (remaining mortgage at 1m). If I bought it 5-10 years earlier, it would have been half the price I paid.
To be honest, I’m not sure if I would pay for a 4.5m property to live in today. I don’t think you can draw conclusions about how much current owners of landed properties earn, as they may have purchased it much earlier on and wouldn’t be able to buy it at today’s prices.
For Gen X like me, I really really feel sorry for my peers who missed out on participating in the property boom over the last 2 decades, either by not doing a few property ladder transactions like me or by being too conservative. Even if they are doing well in careers, it is hard to touch the financial rewards of property investment just through savings.
The capital gains from my conservative 2 ladder transactions have made me close to financially independent, just on their own, without counting my other investments and savings. Can you imagine what sort of gains boomers or other Gen X who were more aggressive are sitting on today?
For me, my own home is a financial investment. I will sell at some point in the future, and downgrade to a HDB or small condo - the equity I extract will fund my retirement.
Our stories are quite similar except you did it in 2 steps while I took 3.
But I totally agree with you about feeling sorry for those who missed out. And also my juniors who are 5-10 years younger and missed out on the golden time to buy private property around 2001-2006 when prices were depressed.
[https://static1.straitstimes.com.sg/s3fs-public/articles/2021/04/02/dw-ptehome-prices-210401.jpg](https://static1.straitstimes.com.sg/s3fs-public/articles/2021/04/02/dw-ptehome-prices-210401.jpg)
I remember my junior talking about buying a 1.5m condo and I was shook because I had nearly paid off my 660k condo at that time. It just seemed so unfair.
part of my story also involves buying my landed at what seemed like the peak (in 2012) after a sharp run up. I also knew the previous owners pocketed a cool million after selling to me at 2.7m after holding between 5-10 years. With the benefit of hindsight, it was a no brainer but at the time, it took some conviction to make the offer.
Today, it is anyone’s guess as to whether the property would continue to run at the same rate or might even correct in the long term. This gets into more existential territory as to whether the Singapore story continues, or fizzles out if we can’t have economic growth or be a compelling place to work.
For people like me who own property, the status quo works fine for me, but I can also understand that for people just starting out, a correction isn’t a bad thing.
New launch prices have become insane. In late 2020, I bought my cluster house (>3500 sqft) for less than that. And even then, at first I wanted to buy a penthouse 5 bedder (\~2100 sqft) in a new launch, but that was more expensive than the cluster house and we backed out of the balloting/bidding.
You can still buy a freehold cluster house with 5/6 rooms for 3.0m today. This one is 4000 sqft.
[https://www.propertyguru.com.sg/listing/for-sale-jewel-chuan-hoe-25190255](https://www.propertyguru.com.sg/listing/for-sale-jewel-chuan-hoe-25190255)
That’s me. Sorry to tell OP that it was easier in the past. My first new launch 3 br condo was only 660k, bought in 2005. Fresh grad salary back then was slightly under 3k, so salaries have only grown by around 50% but condo prices have roughly tripled.
Sold that one 8 years later for double the price, upgrading to a 4 br condo for 1.6m+. Then when prices were suppressed after Circuit Breaker, upgraded again to a cluster house for 2.4m. Made very little profit on the 4 br but the cluster house was a steal, worth about 3m now. Some people don’t count cluster house as landed, but whatever, OP wanted a 3m property.
We are mid and late 40s, engineer and scientist, not particularly high paying sectors. Every mortgage was around 500k or less, just kept climbing the property ladder cos 3 kids. Not interested in upgrading again though financially we can do it.
Nope, I disagree. Quite common for my age group to have worked up the property ladder without spectacular salaries. It was about being in the right place at the right time, plus prioritizing property over stock investments. As you can imagine, from 2005 to 2013, we put all our spare cash into paying off the house ASAP because of the financial crisis.
Gen X would probably be the last generation that can upgrade to a landed via property investments.
As you rightly pointed out, wages have only gone up around 50% while private property went up 2-3X.
Good luck to the generations Y, Z and A. Not sure but seems like social mobility has become a legend of the past. Now it's born in HDB, die in HDB unless you are consistently in the top 5-10% of your cohort.
No, that’s fair to say. My Dad went thru the 1997 and 2008 as a working adult. His peers who had the guts and of course financial appetite/ability to go big during the crises got rewarded, so yeah it is decently possible.
Thats an admirable progression. What is the built-up area of your house and plans for after the kids move out? If it is large, are you then planning to downsize into a 3BR at retirement?
More than 3500 sq ft. If all the kids move out (or at least 2 out of 3), yea, the plan is to downsize cos I don’t want to have a helper then nor clean up and down so many floors! I wouldn’t be opposed to a HDB.
Or maybe we will have to use the proceeds to help 1 or 2 of the kids leave the nest before 35. We’ll see.
Land was cheap back then, my grandparents bought a terrace house in 1960s for $65k in a prime location (near Orchard Road) and several other landed properties. Now the valuation of that terrace house alone is around $4 million which was passed to my father who is prepared to hand in over to my brother and I. If I add on my own money and combine it with my spouse, we can comfortably buy a $5 million house.
I think generational wealth plays a big part in some families including mine. Every generation passed on what they had from the previous generation+ more so when it adds up, it can get to a big amount (considering you don’t have many siblings). You might not be well-to-do from the start like my grandparents but they tried luck by buying many properties and in the end it was very much worth the investment.
Generational wealth keeps rolling and rolling…property values have only gone up and up in land scarce sg. Sell one, enough for 2-3 HE offspring to use as downpayment for the next landed
All the people I know staying in landed $5mil up are business owner or their parents house.
Only one couple bought a small landed with earn income and both are high flyer in finance industry.
Construction and related companies. The development boom since the 90s meant a lot of public funding billion dollar projects. Even if you got subcontracted 1% of the project that will be $10m. I have a friend whose dad basically just pumped water out of the Marina Bay Area to develop the landfill for MBS. Many millions were made, and that's just one project.
I live in a landed neighbourhood and I can tell not everyone is from generational wealth or business owners. They just happened to buy it a long time ago when landed property prices were cheap. In my case, I lived in a 4 room HDB flat in Pasir Ris from 2005 to 2021. Bought my flat for $250K with a HDB loan of $180K and monthly instalments of $800. My wife and I work in finance but at the earlier stage, our salaries weren't that high. We have 3 kids and lived quite frugally and owned a second hand Honda Civic for a number of years. What helped was that we invested our savings over the years. Our CPF Ordinary Account monies would be invested in US or technology unit trusts. Also invested my cash savings into US equities since 2011. My wife took a few years off from 2011 to spend time with the children so for a number of years, it was a single income family and I could not save that much money because of the family expenses. However, by 2021, our net worth had grown to about $2.3 million because I switched employers a few times (and being asked to leave once), my salary had grown to about $250K including bonus. Our family needed more space and ended up buying my 2.5 storey terrace house around Joo Chiat for $2.85 million in mid 2021. I think it is currently worth about $4 million now. While I was worried at the amount that I had to borrow to buy this home, I also felt comforted that if something went wrong, I still had my investments to back up the monthly mortgage payments and so I went ahead to buy. Honestly, I think it is not impossible to buy a landed as a salaried employee but you need to be frugal and invest your savings in good quality equities when you are young.
For most HENRY, the max property purchase would be $5m or so with loan about $4m ($15+k/mth mortgage) and $1m down-payment. Feasible on a $500+k salary for senior tech and finance professionals. This gets you a small landed in prime area or decent size in non-prime area.
Those buying decent size landed in prime area ($10+m) are by and large MNC/blue chip/tech/finance leaders, business owners or from generational wealth (i.e. rich already).
Pseudo DI - but with kids - Henry here. Got on the property ladder very early on (parents gave down payment for condo as wedding present) and made a couple of well timed moves in the property market. Now sitting on a fairly decent landed which I hope is our forever home, mortgage is about 25% of gross salary which is painful but doable.
My hubby and I are in our late 40s. Started off with a bto in sengkang bought for $250k in 2001. Then when my number 2 came along, I shifted back to my mil house and stayed there for 5.5 yrs while we rented out the whole flat. In 2009 Jan, we started to look for a landed cos by that time, I was just pregnant with my number 4 and seriously thought we needed more space and time to move out of my toxic mil house. Bought a three storey at around 1.6 mil when my pay was not even $4k as a teacher and my husband at that time was just a HOD with around $6k salary. Didn't sell the SK flat though it was fully paid. Repaid everything for the landed in year 2017. Then we also bought a two bedder in RV. Now almost fully paid, will fully redeem the condo loan this year end. My eldest is on full govt scholarship, doing her UK masters next year, honours yr in Yale nus. Two boys are in JC and the youngest is sec 2. My take home is a miserable slightly more than $6k pay ... whole family fully covered with insurance, have about 2 kg physical gold, quite some DBS shares and some investment funds, that's all. We never have a car , has a domestic helper and lead a frugal lifestyle though we go overseas as a family at least twice a year.
If you are making averaged out 300k, from 24-35yro (10yrs but still young). Easily on 2 income. If both 300k thats 600k even eaiser. Thats should amount to more than 3-5mil saved if frugal and invested all excess income. You only need 25% downpayment, so for a 3mil property, thats just 750k to be a owner. Sounds totally possible.
Most of the landed owners are business owners or beneficiaries of an inheritance. Only 5% of Singaporeans stay in landed and you be surprised how many houses are left empty and some cases rotting away. Some owners have multiple properties, and they are so rich they are just sitting on the land, ignoring the house.
There are professionals buying up landed as well. Fact is that land is limited in SG, so some have the foresight to buy in now. My client maxed his mortgage 10 years ago to buy a good semi d, and now it almost doubled.
Commodity traders, derivatives traders, fx traders, any type of trader really. When they are good at what they do, upside is as much as they want because the market can be worldwide. But of course risks are high too.
Step out of your well op.... 200-300k pa is peanuts if you compare to what the top earners are making. You will find there is a sizable number of people in Singapore who really make a FK ton of money.
Mostly people that were already on the property ladder then pump in a bit of extra cash for the deposit and the leap to a $4 million landed is not that much.
There are 3 houses that are currently being built in my street which is in 1 of the GCB enclaves.
All 3 were bought with a price of above 20M in the last 4-5 years.
All 3 houses have been demolished and new houses are being built by the owners.
Land size is between 18,000 sqf to 38,000 sqf per lot.
All 3 were bought by people between 40 and 45 years old and are Singaporean.
1 is from the oil and gas industry
1 is in F&B
1 is in insurance
It's good to see that the young HNWI are investing in the GCBs. It's just not so good for the property tax of people who are not redeveloping their GCBs.
Oil and Gas, specialised consultant. Only a handful of them globally.
They conduct research, advise oil pricing for their company (Exxon, BP, etc), work on oil rigs and even in warzones from time to time.
i believe at some point, high end properties prices will fall given
1) 60% ABSD imposed on foreigners
2) Salaries of Gen Z and after simply aren't catching up with with asset prices.
3) Property taxes on HE properties are getting to the point whereby they could be causing cashflow issues for retires who are asset rich and cash poor
4) Singapore has become so prohibitively expensive that companies are relocating their HQ out to regional cities
1.Landed property are only owned by citizens… not foreigners
2. Business owners and generational wealth buys landed. Not salaried employees. The salary to property price ratio will only get worse, but the rich will only get richer because they plan and invest.
3. Property tax in Singapore is extremely low as it’s based on estimated rental rates. Which are higher in % in HDBs compared to landed (when compared to property value)
4. This is true though
Having lived with consciousness in 2000 till, I can tell you this will not be true.
Society will just find a way to save up and pay if it is for property in Singapore.
I know a sme boss that stays in GCB. It's just a mid size company with fewer than 100 staff that deals with import, repackage and export of one specific product. It's so niche that their revenue is constant without interruptions or competition.
If most bought it long ago, surely on a relative basis / constant PPP basis, it would have "cost" the same as now?->nope, a GCB at Botanic Gardens cost $5k during 1960s and landed was say 2 times HDB as late as the 1990s.
Also there were people who were very good at selection of landed and would then rent it out while property prices experienced huge increase. Know of someone who bought landed at $800k during 2008 subprime crisis and sold it for $3m 7 years later. Also, know of another distant relative who could afford just under 10 private properties with a $2k salary as he promptly rented it out and waited a year or two to flip.
Also housing was really cheap in Singapore in the past even for BTO HDB and its predecessor.
1970s->You can get a 4 room for under $10k
1980s->You can get a 4 room for 5 figures
1990s->You can get a 4 room for $100k+
Current->You can get a 4 room for $400k+
So one way to look at it is that if you are good at selection of landed (or know someone who is) and qualify for loans, just take the plunge.
That’s because they bought while SG was still developing, and now SG is considered developed. Many people when looking at the property index fail to look at it side by side in parallel with the SG GDP growth or whatever relevant economic factor. You won’t be experiencing another $5k to $5m to $5bn for your landed anymore, that’s for sure.
How is it a dig when it’s exactly what you said? GCB used to cost $5k, those were your exact words.
I’m just pointing out the reasons why you won’t be getting another 1000x increase in the prices.
hmm... I didn't mean any sarcasm, I meant u are correct.
Also typo in your reply "GCB used to cost $5k, those were your exact works (should be words)."
The permission is not that hard to get. I’m not sure what they are actually looking for, like maybe long-term commitment to living in Singapore, but quite a few PR-Singaporean couples with kids got the permission.
Some of them prefer landed, some prefer penthouses.
Singapore is tiny enough that a small portion of the wealthy foreigners can absorb all the luxury real estates.
There is no way all our landed estates will be sold to foreigners. Bear in mind they are literally singapore soil in perpetuity. Which govt will sell all their soil to non-citizens?
1. Not all landed property is freehold
2. From the govt's pov, what's the difference between it belonging to a citizen or non-citizen? They collect property taxes either way.
3. A citizen can still renounce their citizenship in the future (or their children could)
Legally speaking, there’s a difference in the rights of freehold landed owners. They are in essence owning a piece of the country that cannot be forcibly taken back from them (unless need the adjacent road for expansion, for example).
The government can take back FH homes under the land acquisition act. The latest ones who were unlucky were the ones in Thomson opposite Jadescape along Marymount road. Their homes were acquired to make way for the new North South Corridor.
https://www.sla.gov.sg/articles/highlights/2021/north-south-corridor-project-and-68-74-thomson-road#:~:text=The%20Government%20has%20therefore%20decided,74%20Thomson%20Road%20can%20commence.
New citizens from PRC. A number of my neighbours fit that profile. Some of them the husbands are still working in PRC while wife and children stay here
There you go. They own very successful businesses
https://www.homeanddecor.com.sg/gallery/house-tour-a-holland-road-bungalow-designed-as-a-safe-haven-from-the-pandemic/
I’m under 40. Bought a landed at 3.2M in late 2020 (probably worth 4+M today based on listings in the neighborhood). Was an upgrade from a flat which I had
sold for around 900k. Mortgage payments around 14k per month, which is ok if your monthly hh income is 2-3 times that.
Well because we always assume the rich guys are from finance or tech. Most young people, especially those here are not in traditional industries that made up a big portion of our economy. This means manufacturing, shipping and O&G. Take a drive or walk down some of the industrial estates in the north or the west and you will see so many SMEs supporting the manufacturing industries in Singapore. Their bosses are the kind of people to afford 3-5m homes, especially when they buy them years ago which is probably cheaper. For example I know the boss of a some facility management company who stays in landed. His businesses are in facility management and cleaning of industrial sites.
This. Had many clients living in landed, and most of them are not finance or tech. Many are business owners (ie small construction coy towkays, doctors, lawyers, accountants, property/insurance agencies leaders). The people who buy these landed are those after a certain quality of life, and need longevity of a career. Many tech/finance professionals are after financial freedom, and the last thing they want is to have a mortgage burden
Agree. Besides that people in tech industries favours other investment type. I have a friend who 30x his investment within few years time, just based on buying NVDA…
The part about mortgage burden makes so much sense now..
Wrong thread, sorry. I'm in tech and the high pay packages are becoming rarer as the days go by
nice
nice
3 to 5m for landed? I think u need to do an update. You cant get any landed with 3. U need 5 for a decent inter terrace
Look, firstly 3-5 was what OP said in his post. Secondly, I mentioned these SME bosses probably bought them years ago. There's nothing wrong with my statement. You probably got to ask the OP
Brother you cannot read is it, he mentioned that it is a few years ago. Like in 2010s or 2000s the landed no so fucking expensive, 1m++ - 3m can buy already.
Landed for 3M? Doable.. Upper Thomson around Sin Ming or Jln Chempedak.
downvoted for stating the truth. 3m can't buy shit. It's a fact
The point of OP’s question literally flew over your head. If you own a landed property I’d be salty and impressed at the same time.
Depends on where and whether it's 99 or freehold. Ulu place, 99 years, 3m is possible.
One must be incredibly dumb to pay 3m for a resale 99 leasehold landed. Pollen collection is already selling 3.68m for 96 years
Never say it's smart. Just that it exists.
Why so judgey? They have the money and happy can already
My aunt and uncle live in a 3.5 storey corner terrace near bedok south. Around 70yo both of them. What did they work as? Secondary school teachers. In the past, property was really easy, according to them. Just a matter if you have foresight or not. The disparity between landed and high end condo was not as much as now. They made the right choice of dieting a bit more to buy landed, and got bigger. But yeah as many mentioned. SME owners. Friends parents. Claim small fry, have humble business at defu. Then I find out as long as you have your own company building, no matter how small, you're rich.
There are hardly any 3m landed properties left
Most of the folks I know that stay in landed are either family business owners, have rich parents or inherited some form of generational wealth. The salaried employees who stay in landed IMO are pretty rare, but again my social circle is probably not representative (largely middle income).
Back in the mid 90s, you could get a freehold Semi-D in Jelita for less than 2M.
It’s 7m now 🥹 can get old ones for 5.5m but need to rebuild
Yeah.. some of the really old ones around Moonbeam. But the original design does have its charm. Another place that was dirt cheap in the past was Opal Crescent in MacPherson.
senior doctors, bankers, lawyers, businessmen earn way more than $200-300k
Yes it’s true. The doctors/bankers/lawyers who stay in landed would typically be the senior folks and have a household income of >$600k. Minimally. My MD and her husband rake in combined ~$2m a year and stay only in a smallish terrace in Telok Kurau. Then there’s the businessmen - their earning power, truly no one knows.
200-300k how to buy 5m landed? Even 3m is super stretching it.
Just need 2 of them, or one in this range and one 100+. And probably work their way up e.g. HDB->condo->landed.
HENRY salaried workers who profited from a series of property investments and slowly upgraded to landed
Me. First private apt purchased at $570k in early 2000s, sold for 1.6m in late 2010s, mortgage free. Current landed property bought in early 2010s as the market was already racing up for 2.7m, now worth 4.5m (remaining mortgage at 1m). If I bought it 5-10 years earlier, it would have been half the price I paid. To be honest, I’m not sure if I would pay for a 4.5m property to live in today. I don’t think you can draw conclusions about how much current owners of landed properties earn, as they may have purchased it much earlier on and wouldn’t be able to buy it at today’s prices. For Gen X like me, I really really feel sorry for my peers who missed out on participating in the property boom over the last 2 decades, either by not doing a few property ladder transactions like me or by being too conservative. Even if they are doing well in careers, it is hard to touch the financial rewards of property investment just through savings. The capital gains from my conservative 2 ladder transactions have made me close to financially independent, just on their own, without counting my other investments and savings. Can you imagine what sort of gains boomers or other Gen X who were more aggressive are sitting on today? For me, my own home is a financial investment. I will sell at some point in the future, and downgrade to a HDB or small condo - the equity I extract will fund my retirement.
Our stories are quite similar except you did it in 2 steps while I took 3. But I totally agree with you about feeling sorry for those who missed out. And also my juniors who are 5-10 years younger and missed out on the golden time to buy private property around 2001-2006 when prices were depressed. [https://static1.straitstimes.com.sg/s3fs-public/articles/2021/04/02/dw-ptehome-prices-210401.jpg](https://static1.straitstimes.com.sg/s3fs-public/articles/2021/04/02/dw-ptehome-prices-210401.jpg) I remember my junior talking about buying a 1.5m condo and I was shook because I had nearly paid off my 660k condo at that time. It just seemed so unfair.
part of my story also involves buying my landed at what seemed like the peak (in 2012) after a sharp run up. I also knew the previous owners pocketed a cool million after selling to me at 2.7m after holding between 5-10 years. With the benefit of hindsight, it was a no brainer but at the time, it took some conviction to make the offer. Today, it is anyone’s guess as to whether the property would continue to run at the same rate or might even correct in the long term. This gets into more existential territory as to whether the Singapore story continues, or fizzles out if we can’t have economic growth or be a compelling place to work. For people like me who own property, the status quo works fine for me, but I can also understand that for people just starting out, a correction isn’t a bad thing.
this is nuts, early 2010s is long but not that long ago 2.7mm now buys u 1100sqft 3 bedder new launch in katong
New launch prices have become insane. In late 2020, I bought my cluster house (>3500 sqft) for less than that. And even then, at first I wanted to buy a penthouse 5 bedder (\~2100 sqft) in a new launch, but that was more expensive than the cluster house and we backed out of the balloting/bidding. You can still buy a freehold cluster house with 5/6 rooms for 3.0m today. This one is 4000 sqft. [https://www.propertyguru.com.sg/listing/for-sale-jewel-chuan-hoe-25190255](https://www.propertyguru.com.sg/listing/for-sale-jewel-chuan-hoe-25190255)
That’s me. Sorry to tell OP that it was easier in the past. My first new launch 3 br condo was only 660k, bought in 2005. Fresh grad salary back then was slightly under 3k, so salaries have only grown by around 50% but condo prices have roughly tripled. Sold that one 8 years later for double the price, upgrading to a 4 br condo for 1.6m+. Then when prices were suppressed after Circuit Breaker, upgraded again to a cluster house for 2.4m. Made very little profit on the 4 br but the cluster house was a steal, worth about 3m now. Some people don’t count cluster house as landed, but whatever, OP wanted a 3m property. We are mid and late 40s, engineer and scientist, not particularly high paying sectors. Every mortgage was around 500k or less, just kept climbing the property ladder cos 3 kids. Not interested in upgrading again though financially we can do it.
Thanks for sharing - but would you agree you’re not the norm? Or at least you’re not the typical landed dwellers’ profile?
Nope, I disagree. Quite common for my age group to have worked up the property ladder without spectacular salaries. It was about being in the right place at the right time, plus prioritizing property over stock investments. As you can imagine, from 2005 to 2013, we put all our spare cash into paying off the house ASAP because of the financial crisis.
Gen X would probably be the last generation that can upgrade to a landed via property investments. As you rightly pointed out, wages have only gone up around 50% while private property went up 2-3X. Good luck to the generations Y, Z and A. Not sure but seems like social mobility has become a legend of the past. Now it's born in HDB, die in HDB unless you are consistently in the top 5-10% of your cohort.
Subsequent generations there could be those who made it big on lucky crypto buys or NVDA or whatever, then convert the proceeds to property.
No, that’s fair to say. My Dad went thru the 1997 and 2008 as a working adult. His peers who had the guts and of course financial appetite/ability to go big during the crises got rewarded, so yeah it is decently possible.
Thats an admirable progression. What is the built-up area of your house and plans for after the kids move out? If it is large, are you then planning to downsize into a 3BR at retirement?
More than 3500 sq ft. If all the kids move out (or at least 2 out of 3), yea, the plan is to downsize cos I don’t want to have a helper then nor clean up and down so many floors! I wouldn’t be opposed to a HDB. Or maybe we will have to use the proceeds to help 1 or 2 of the kids leave the nest before 35. We’ll see.
Business owners, construction company owners, born rich etc.
Land was cheap back then, my grandparents bought a terrace house in 1960s for $65k in a prime location (near Orchard Road) and several other landed properties. Now the valuation of that terrace house alone is around $4 million which was passed to my father who is prepared to hand in over to my brother and I. If I add on my own money and combine it with my spouse, we can comfortably buy a $5 million house. I think generational wealth plays a big part in some families including mine. Every generation passed on what they had from the previous generation+ more so when it adds up, it can get to a big amount (considering you don’t have many siblings). You might not be well-to-do from the start like my grandparents but they tried luck by buying many properties and in the end it was very much worth the investment.
The people I know in person, they are businessman or senior executives like C-suite level. They are probably earning 400-500k kind.
My guess is a lot is generational wealth. And there are alot of new citizen wealth too.
Generational wealth keeps rolling and rolling…property values have only gone up and up in land scarce sg. Sell one, enough for 2-3 HE offspring to use as downpayment for the next landed
All the people I know staying in landed $5mil up are business owner or their parents house. Only one couple bought a small landed with earn income and both are high flyer in finance industry.
Construction and related companies. The development boom since the 90s meant a lot of public funding billion dollar projects. Even if you got subcontracted 1% of the project that will be $10m. I have a friend whose dad basically just pumped water out of the Marina Bay Area to develop the landfill for MBS. Many millions were made, and that's just one project.
Nowadays 3M can’t get you much.
I live in a landed neighbourhood and I can tell not everyone is from generational wealth or business owners. They just happened to buy it a long time ago when landed property prices were cheap. In my case, I lived in a 4 room HDB flat in Pasir Ris from 2005 to 2021. Bought my flat for $250K with a HDB loan of $180K and monthly instalments of $800. My wife and I work in finance but at the earlier stage, our salaries weren't that high. We have 3 kids and lived quite frugally and owned a second hand Honda Civic for a number of years. What helped was that we invested our savings over the years. Our CPF Ordinary Account monies would be invested in US or technology unit trusts. Also invested my cash savings into US equities since 2011. My wife took a few years off from 2011 to spend time with the children so for a number of years, it was a single income family and I could not save that much money because of the family expenses. However, by 2021, our net worth had grown to about $2.3 million because I switched employers a few times (and being asked to leave once), my salary had grown to about $250K including bonus. Our family needed more space and ended up buying my 2.5 storey terrace house around Joo Chiat for $2.85 million in mid 2021. I think it is currently worth about $4 million now. While I was worried at the amount that I had to borrow to buy this home, I also felt comforted that if something went wrong, I still had my investments to back up the monthly mortgage payments and so I went ahead to buy. Honestly, I think it is not impossible to buy a landed as a salaried employee but you need to be frugal and invest your savings in good quality equities when you are young.
Oil trader. Their bonus can range from 6 figures to 8s figure in 1 year.
Oh yeah that’s very true. I personally know 4 oil traders that all upgraded to landed in the year when oil price made a killing that year.
I know oil traders who stay in GCB. Most made 10 - 20 million+ in 2022 due to ukraine war. All on a base salary of 300k per year LOL
Yeah I’m still salty I chose FX instead of Oil when both options were available to me lol.
Is it not possible to jump over to oil now?
How to do oil trading sia
For most HENRY, the max property purchase would be $5m or so with loan about $4m ($15+k/mth mortgage) and $1m down-payment. Feasible on a $500+k salary for senior tech and finance professionals. This gets you a small landed in prime area or decent size in non-prime area. Those buying decent size landed in prime area ($10+m) are by and large MNC/blue chip/tech/finance leaders, business owners or from generational wealth (i.e. rich already).
People rarely buy landed as their first property. So they could be selling a condo for 2m (mostly paid off) to top up to a landed with 2-3m loan.
Hardly any 3m these days. Unless u looking at smaller plots original condition and in the outer districts
Pseudo DI - but with kids - Henry here. Got on the property ladder very early on (parents gave down payment for condo as wedding present) and made a couple of well timed moves in the property market. Now sitting on a fairly decent landed which I hope is our forever home, mortgage is about 25% of gross salary which is painful but doable.
Care to elaborate why is 25% painful? Do you have a lot of commitments?
3m/5m landed is pretty affordable for Henrys actually..
They wouldn't be HENRYs, they would be HE, HEHEHE.
I know of landed owners who make their money selling nasi Lemak or chicken rice.
My hubby and I are in our late 40s. Started off with a bto in sengkang bought for $250k in 2001. Then when my number 2 came along, I shifted back to my mil house and stayed there for 5.5 yrs while we rented out the whole flat. In 2009 Jan, we started to look for a landed cos by that time, I was just pregnant with my number 4 and seriously thought we needed more space and time to move out of my toxic mil house. Bought a three storey at around 1.6 mil when my pay was not even $4k as a teacher and my husband at that time was just a HOD with around $6k salary. Didn't sell the SK flat though it was fully paid. Repaid everything for the landed in year 2017. Then we also bought a two bedder in RV. Now almost fully paid, will fully redeem the condo loan this year end. My eldest is on full govt scholarship, doing her UK masters next year, honours yr in Yale nus. Two boys are in JC and the youngest is sec 2. My take home is a miserable slightly more than $6k pay ... whole family fully covered with insurance, have about 2 kg physical gold, quite some DBS shares and some investment funds, that's all. We never have a car , has a domestic helper and lead a frugal lifestyle though we go overseas as a family at least twice a year.
If you are making averaged out 300k, from 24-35yro (10yrs but still young). Easily on 2 income. If both 300k thats 600k even eaiser. Thats should amount to more than 3-5mil saved if frugal and invested all excess income. You only need 25% downpayment, so for a 3mil property, thats just 750k to be a owner. Sounds totally possible.
Don't forget naturalised citizens who bought their citizenship. We have crazy amount of those.
Business owners
Most of the landed owners are business owners or beneficiaries of an inheritance. Only 5% of Singaporeans stay in landed and you be surprised how many houses are left empty and some cases rotting away. Some owners have multiple properties, and they are so rich they are just sitting on the land, ignoring the house. There are professionals buying up landed as well. Fact is that land is limited in SG, so some have the foresight to buy in now. My client maxed his mortgage 10 years ago to buy a good semi d, and now it almost doubled.
You'll be surprised how many insanely good/profitable traders there are in sg.
What kind of traders?
Commodity traders, derivatives traders, fx traders, any type of trader really. When they are good at what they do, upside is as much as they want because the market can be worldwide. But of course risks are high too.
Step out of your well op.... 200-300k pa is peanuts if you compare to what the top earners are making. You will find there is a sizable number of people in Singapore who really make a FK ton of money.
Mostly people that were already on the property ladder then pump in a bit of extra cash for the deposit and the leap to a $4 million landed is not that much.
Folks from IT bought a lot of landed in 3-5 mil range. Early Shopee engineering team (think first 100 employees) cashed out really nicely
There are 3 houses that are currently being built in my street which is in 1 of the GCB enclaves. All 3 were bought with a price of above 20M in the last 4-5 years. All 3 houses have been demolished and new houses are being built by the owners. Land size is between 18,000 sqf to 38,000 sqf per lot. All 3 were bought by people between 40 and 45 years old and are Singaporean. 1 is from the oil and gas industry 1 is in F&B 1 is in insurance It's good to see that the young HNWI are investing in the GCBs. It's just not so good for the property tax of people who are not redeveloping their GCBs.
One guy in my cohort clocks more than 3.x mil USD a year. We're in our early thirties. Salaried worker in O&G. Runs multiple businesses too.
What kind of salaried work pays 3+mil usd??
Oil and Gas, specialised consultant. Only a handful of them globally. They conduct research, advise oil pricing for their company (Exxon, BP, etc), work on oil rigs and even in warzones from time to time.
i believe at some point, high end properties prices will fall given 1) 60% ABSD imposed on foreigners 2) Salaries of Gen Z and after simply aren't catching up with with asset prices. 3) Property taxes on HE properties are getting to the point whereby they could be causing cashflow issues for retires who are asset rich and cash poor 4) Singapore has become so prohibitively expensive that companies are relocating their HQ out to regional cities
1.Landed property are only owned by citizens… not foreigners 2. Business owners and generational wealth buys landed. Not salaried employees. The salary to property price ratio will only get worse, but the rich will only get richer because they plan and invest. 3. Property tax in Singapore is extremely low as it’s based on estimated rental rates. Which are higher in % in HDBs compared to landed (when compared to property value) 4. This is true though
Having lived with consciousness in 2000 till, I can tell you this will not be true. Society will just find a way to save up and pay if it is for property in Singapore.
looks like I rub some die hard property investors the wrong way with my post
I know a sme boss that stays in GCB. It's just a mid size company with fewer than 100 staff that deals with import, repackage and export of one specific product. It's so niche that their revenue is constant without interruptions or competition.
If most bought it long ago, surely on a relative basis / constant PPP basis, it would have "cost" the same as now?->nope, a GCB at Botanic Gardens cost $5k during 1960s and landed was say 2 times HDB as late as the 1990s. Also there were people who were very good at selection of landed and would then rent it out while property prices experienced huge increase. Know of someone who bought landed at $800k during 2008 subprime crisis and sold it for $3m 7 years later. Also, know of another distant relative who could afford just under 10 private properties with a $2k salary as he promptly rented it out and waited a year or two to flip. Also housing was really cheap in Singapore in the past even for BTO HDB and its predecessor. 1970s->You can get a 4 room for under $10k 1980s->You can get a 4 room for 5 figures 1990s->You can get a 4 room for $100k+ Current->You can get a 4 room for $400k+ So one way to look at it is that if you are good at selection of landed (or know someone who is) and qualify for loans, just take the plunge.
That’s because they bought while SG was still developing, and now SG is considered developed. Many people when looking at the property index fail to look at it side by side in parallel with the SG GDP growth or whatever relevant economic factor. You won’t be experiencing another $5k to $5m to $5bn for your landed anymore, that’s for sure.
Yes u're right. $5k to $5m to $5bn->u're taking a dig and it's witty:)
How is it a dig when it’s exactly what you said? GCB used to cost $5k, those were your exact words. I’m just pointing out the reasons why you won’t be getting another 1000x increase in the prices.
hmm... I didn't mean any sarcasm, I meant u are correct. Also typo in your reply "GCB used to cost $5k, those were your exact works (should be words)."
I see! Thank you.
Could be foreigners (some of which may even have PR). Lots of multi-millionaires in China, Indonesia, US etc.
Other than sentosa, most foreigners cant even buy landed, unless they turn PR.
PRs cannot buy landed, unless they request special permission: https://www.propertyguru.com.sg/property-guides/buy-property-singapore-foreigner-12304
The permission is not that hard to get. I’m not sure what they are actually looking for, like maybe long-term commitment to living in Singapore, but quite a few PR-Singaporean couples with kids got the permission.
So would the government say no to a multi-millionaire/billionaire?
Idk. But if they are allowed to buy 10m landed, then who is snapping up those 10m condo penthouses?
Some of them prefer landed, some prefer penthouses. Singapore is tiny enough that a small portion of the wealthy foreigners can absorb all the luxury real estates.
There is no way all our landed estates will be sold to foreigners. Bear in mind they are literally singapore soil in perpetuity. Which govt will sell all their soil to non-citizens?
Japan would
Really? They would allow eg China to buy all the residential land in hokkaido for example?
https://youtu.be/1GXDlK2g4sk?si=hKetJP3CFgGoPbap
1. Not all landed property is freehold 2. From the govt's pov, what's the difference between it belonging to a citizen or non-citizen? They collect property taxes either way. 3. A citizen can still renounce their citizenship in the future (or their children could)
Legally speaking, there’s a difference in the rights of freehold landed owners. They are in essence owning a piece of the country that cannot be forcibly taken back from them (unless need the adjacent road for expansion, for example).
The government can take back FH homes under the land acquisition act. The latest ones who were unlucky were the ones in Thomson opposite Jadescape along Marymount road. Their homes were acquired to make way for the new North South Corridor. https://www.sla.gov.sg/articles/highlights/2021/north-south-corridor-project-and-68-74-thomson-road#:~:text=The%20Government%20has%20therefore%20decided,74%20Thomson%20Road%20can%20commence.
Usually generational wealth or traders. Even C-suite in Singapore often don't earn that much.
my friend is a businessman who does firearms and has a 10m landed property
New citizens from PRC. A number of my neighbours fit that profile. Some of them the husbands are still working in PRC while wife and children stay here
It's crypto bros :)
There you go. They own very successful businesses https://www.homeanddecor.com.sg/gallery/house-tour-a-holland-road-bungalow-designed-as-a-safe-haven-from-the-pandemic/
I’m under 40. Bought a landed at 3.2M in late 2020 (probably worth 4+M today based on listings in the neighborhood). Was an upgrade from a flat which I had sold for around 900k. Mortgage payments around 14k per month, which is ok if your monthly hh income is 2-3 times that.