Young Singaporeans Should Right-Size Their Housing Aspirations at Each Life Stage

Housing is a major expense that sucks away a sizable chunk of your income, and can even have an impact on your savings potential. As a result, it’s important to plan carefully when buying a house.

While we may have a tendency to look for the best deals in housing, we should also consider our needs at different life stages. By right-sizing, we can unlock cash from our current flats to invest in a smaller one that suits our future needs.

Young Singles

Tinder has rolled out a crash course in online dating that is aimed at young Singaporeans, called School of Swipe. Taking place over the next few months, the event will help participants build confidence and build meaningful connections with new people.

The survey showed that most people, including singles, would like to own a home in the next two years. The main reason was that they want to have more personal space.

But despite these aspirations, many of them do not have the means to do so, as they do not earn enough money to afford a private property. This has led to some singles opting to rent.

Mr Chua, whose Workers’ Party is the main opposition group in Parliament, said this has serious implications for singles who cannot afford to own their own homes. He suggested that the Government review its policy, which excludes singles under 35 from buying HDB flats.

Another possible solution, he suggested, is to subsidise rent for singles who choose to rent. However, he cautioned that this could transfer taxpayers’ money into the hands of landlords.

Young Couples

Singapore is a thriving city-state with one of the highest standards of living in Asia. Its workers pay into a social security system that provides health care benefits, allows them to borrow in order to purchase a home and enables most to retire at 55.

Many young Singaporeans strive to get into top schools and achieve a high-paying job. This is part of an institutional set-up that puts economic growth and materialistic achievement as a top priority.

However, some young Singaporeans feel that this is a false and unsustainable goal. Some believe that their careers should be based on a strong personal desire rather than what they perceive to be a market-driven economy.

In order to understand why this is happening, we interviewed a group of young Singaporeans about their political participation in two waves of focus group discussions. Both groups of participants were recruited via online advertisements in which basic demographics, citizenship status, political interest, attention to news and politics and preferred time slots were obtained.

Young Families

The current housing environment in Singapore is a complex and dynamic one, with significant implications for all of us. We are faced with a housing affordability crisis that is compounded by the casualisation of labour markets and disruptions in family formation (Campbell, Parkinson et al. 2014).

Young families are particularly susceptible to the impact of housing affordability constraints. They have less access to social rented housing, and the financial capacity to save for a deposit, or afford a home mortgage, than previous generations.

Despite these difficulties, they tend to persist with their shelter and non-shelter aspirations. This is largely driven by family formation, employment and lifestyle choices.

However, they also have to adapt to a changing market and their own preferences. This is a process that is likely to take place over a long period of time. Therefore, young people need to be encouraged to?right-size? their housing aspirations at each life stage. This can be achieved through a combination of policy measures that focus on housing diversity and innovation.

Older Singles

While a number of young Singaporeans are motivated to date seriously after watching their peers tie the knot, it is important for older singles to?right-size? their housing aspirations at each life stage.

Despite this, some younger singles have high expectations and a hard time accepting the fact that not all relationships will progress to marriage. This can be attributed to a lack of experience, as many youths don’t feel ready to commit to a long-term partner just yet.

But this can be remedied by investing more time and effort on dating. Experts recommend giving prospective partners the chance to show their qualities beyond the first date. This is because people may not know if their potential partner will be the right fit for them until they have spent more time together.