this is getting frustrating.

1) thought i could access websites faster in the wee hours of the morning, but i was wrong, esp for Singpass website. without the necessary information, i cannot compute sales proceeds from selling flat and the monthly instalment of buying another flat.

2) morale of my story: You can only own 2 flats in your whole entire life if you are Singaporean. for youngsters, juz a note of advice, never put your name for your parents' flat. HDB considers it as you have already owned a flat. so next time if you want to buy a flat with your spouse, even if your spouse is first timer buying a flat, you are considered a second timer and so the brand new flat you are getting, it's considered your second property. ok, this ruling doesn't really irks me that much.

what irks me is that now buyers of flat who are not eligible for HDB loan has to go to banks to borrow the loan. Ok fine, they call this deregulation, got competition good, consumers are at an advantage. ok, i'm fine with this ruling also.

But 5% cash payment? copied and paste from website:

HDB flat buyers who are getting a mortgage loan from banks have to pay a cash payment with effect from 1 Jan 2004. The cash payment will be eventually aligned with that of private property purchase, that is, 5% based on the lower of the purchase price or market value of the flat.

i was thinking, we are buying a HDB flat here, it's supposed to be affordable. but hello, looks like it's not getting very affordable already. Buying a flat is now aligned with that of a private property purchase. let's juz take an ordinary 4 room flat whose valuation could be easily $272,000. 5% means you have to take out $13600 hard cash. this amount can be easily be used to pay for a undergraduate's semestral fees. Or better spend at renovating a house. what if you still need to renovate the house? and whether you get a bank loan or not, it's another issue. It seems that if it's too low, like $100k, the bank is reluctant to lend (that means buying a 3 room flat with a bank loan is quite impossible) and from the newspaper, if you buy a property in certain areas like geylang, sorry, the bank deems it too risky to lend you the money.

some may argue that you get some money from selling your flat, the money gained can be used. oh come on, who makes 100K from sellling the flat now? yah last time, our parents' time or when police wear bermudas time, yes. But now? a new 5 room flat is easily 200K and above. You think you can sell your flat at 300K or 400K when it matures? yah probably 10 or 20 years down the road, if you are lucky. that means you would be 40 or 50 plus years old. then you would rather not sell and stay put. See, it's yet another way to encourage you not to sell your flat and stay put.

ok, i'm prepared to overcome all these hurdles. but then check this out:

Since 1 January 2003, the CPF withdrawal limit for a housing loan obtained from a bank or financial institution is set at lower of 150% of the Valuation Limit or the Available Housing Withdrawal Limit (AHWL).The 150% Valuation Limit will be reduced to 120% over five years as shown in the table below.

went to CPF website and tried to understand AHWL. i dun understand a GD thing after reading it. so all in all, the past 1 hour has been very frustrating, trying to make sense of everything.

so it means that it's not so easy for buyers to buy a HDB flat if they are getting bank loan to finance their flat. This means that it's not easy for sellers to sell. Then where the heck did they get the figures to show that housing has upped in the last quarter? All these figures are bull shit.

Then it kind of dawn on me that, to be on the safe side, only own 2 HDB flats in your entire life. GDI, talk about taking risks. Now i'm taking the risk, going to sell the flat and a 3rd timer at buying a flat. Now i'm going to induce economy growth through this transaction. But why are there so many hurdles to discourage me from selling and buying? Why am i being 'punished' for taking a risk? don't you always encourage creativity, risk-taking and blah blah blah?

oh yes, i better put a disclaimer before i unintentionally slander any 'boards' any person or accused of not being professional enough.

All things said above are of no intention to slander or caused any grievous hurt to any being, be it a board or a person. All things said above are in the heat of frustration and once the heat is dispalled, all things will be calm and back to the submissive old self, trying our best to fulfil this criteria and that criteria. (in another words, LL)