Overview of housing market in Singapore

Abstract

The housing market in Singapore includes the low-income housing market, the executive condominium market and the private housing market. To solve the housing problem for people, the Government has promoted the development of the low-income housing market with establishing the Housing & Development Board in 1960. At the end of 2018, the Housing & Development Board managed 1,061,236 apartments and over 80% of Singapore's population is living in low-income housing projects. The Singapore real estate market has tended to cool down since 2013 and started to recover in the second quarter of 2017. In order to regulate the housing market, control house price increases and restrict speculation, the Government has applied many effective measures such as reducing the maximum duration of home loans, limiting the value of loans, increasing taxes for real estate buyers... The success of the housing market development policy has helped Singapore becoming one of the countries with the highest home ownership rate in the world, reaching 87.9% in 2020.