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| ▲ | autoexec 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > virtually all Singaporeans believe they own their houses, and it is a point of pride and financial security. Most houses are on 99 year leases It's not as if the US fairs any better. Here you never own your home, you have to pay property taxes your whole life (basically rent) or it will be taken from you. Eminent domain means that they can take your property from you at any time even if you've kept paying them. Singapore has a home ownership rate of ~90% vs 65% in the US and prices are so unaffordable that on average people buying their first starter homes in the US are in their 40s! Most Americans, if they're lucky will get maybe get 30 years of their life in a home they own while they are still young and healthy enough to enjoy it. Last I heard Singapore only had about 1,000 homeless. Whatever they're doing with housing could probably be improved on, but they seem to be doing a lot better than we are. | |
| ▲ | zozbot234 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | 99 year leases make complete sense. Much of the value of a 'house' in an urban area like Singapore is actually in the land, and the value is being created by the community on a day-to-day basis. It makes no sense for that value to be captured for all future time by a single owner, that just encourages pointless speculation and makes it harder to allocate real estate towards its highest and most valuable use. | | |
| ▲ | gruez 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | > It makes no sense for that value to be captured for all future time by a single owner, that just encourages pointless speculation and makes it harder to allocate real estate towards its highest and most valuable use. How do 99 year leases fix the problem? Do people actually get kicked out at 99 years, or does the government renew it for a nominal fee? | | |
| ▲ | delta_p_delta_x 35 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | The overwhelming majority of homes in Singapore are HDB flats built by the government. These are torn down and new, taller buildings fitting more people built in their place. It's called the Selective En-Block Redevelopment Scheme, or SERS[1]. People sell their flats to the government and are given new flats in other neighbourhoods, while their old homes are torn down and new ones rebuilt. So, yes, in some way, they are 'kicked out'. [1]: https://www.hdb.gov.sg/residential/living-in-an-hdb-flat/ser... | |
| ▲ | zozbot234 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | If the lease gets renewed at market value then there's no point in speculating about what that land might be worth in the farther future. It's a key difference from a system where all of the future value must be captured at once by a single owner. | | |
| ▲ | gruez 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Doesn't that just turn into a property tax of 1% per year, without a massive tax bill every 99 years? 99 years is long enough that there's going to be at least 2 owners, which means all sorts of strategizing required on how to plan for the renewal of the lease. |
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| ▲ | delta_p_delta_x 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I think Singaporeans have a decent idea, and given their quality of lives, they have no problems with the trade-offs. If they do, they leave. And many go back, because the trade-offs in the West are even worse. > Despite the iron mathematical law that these houses must depreciate their lease value SERS means that houses slated to be torn down are resold back to the government at near-market rates excluding the effect of the 99-year leasehold. In Singapore, the government owns everything, even ostensibly 'freehold' land. If they want to run an MRT line under your house, and they need to tear your house down to get to it, they will force you to sell your house and your land to them. Has happened before, will absolutely happen again. It's an island city-state smaller than London. There is literally no space anywhere else. | | |
| ▲ | zozbot234 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > If they want to run an MRT line under your house, and they need to tear your house down to get to it, they will force you to sell your house and your land to them. Eminent domain exists in the U.S. and other developed countries too. The point of it is largely to prevent any single owner from "holding up" a non-trivial project like an MRT line. | |
| ▲ | InkCanon 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I think whether houses should be sold on a 99 year lease vs property is a large and separate question. The vast misunderstanding of it still remains - the idea that a house is owned, not rented. Selective properties might be bought back. But the fundamental invariant of this whole situation is that all 99 year leases will worth 0 eventually. Any rise in prices now only increases the eventual depreciation. And add on that massive loans are taken out on depreciating assets, so it's not an investment, it's a liability. And the significant majority of Singaporeans bears this liability on their books. | | |
| ▲ | delta_p_delta_x 29 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > 99 year leases will worth 0 eventually. That's not how it works. The flats aren't valued for their space in the sky; they are valued for the land they are attached to, and their proximity and connections to other communities and infrastructure. I've already said that flats slated for SERS are bought back by the government at market rates well in advance of their leases expiring. > The vast misunderstanding of it still remains - the idea that a house is owned, not rented. What you seem to greatly misunderstand is that land in Singapore is at an extreme premium, the likes of which is hitherto unseen anywhere else. With this context in hand, the idea of traditional 'home ownership' is fundamentally flawed in the first place, because unlike much larger countries, there isn't a large suburban or rural zone in which a new city can just be sprouted up. 750 square kilometres is all you have, and if you have to recycle existing land to maximise its use, so be it, and if it means 99-year leases, then that is the cost. Given average human lifespans, the Western concept of a 'freehold' doesn't really make that much sense anyway, unless you want monarchies, oligarchies, or corporate dynasties monopolising prime land and settling into an even more predatory outright rental economy, which is already seen in most large cities elsewhere. |
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