Housing Affordability in Singapore: Can We Move from Public to Private Housing?

With 84 per cent of the Singapore resident population housed in public housing, the ultimate dream for many is to move into private housing, which is generally considered to offer better quality and more exclusive living. This article is concerned with the enabling factors of affordability in housing mobility. It examines the Singapore public housing homeowners' affordability of private housing, suggesting a measure of that affordability. The survey findings indicate that only a small percentage of public homeowners can afford to move to median-priced private apartments. The number is even smaller for the relatively more expensive landed housing with own garden. On a theoretical level, the study demonstrates that the use of multiple methods to measure housing affordability is beneficial as more affordability determinants are included in the measurement.