My fiance and I wanted to buy a EC for our BTO at Tengah. I thought that since EC is subsidized by HDB, we can get a 2 bedroom unit at maybe around 800k.
So we went to look for an agent in anticipation of the preview. We were suprised when the agent told us to expect the starting price for a 2 bedroom unit to be above 1 million.
He even told us to prepare 1.2 million to be safe as prices may increase even further if the demand is very strong.
So it started to get me thinking are ECs even made for people getting BTO anymore? To pay 1.2 million EC, a couple needs to fork out 300k in cash + CPF for downpayment. This 300k is not even taken into acccount stamp duties and lawyer fees yet.
So thereafter the couple needs to loan 900k from the bank. At current interest rate of around 2.5%, 900k loan requires you to repay 3.6k a month. With addition of the condo monthly maintainence fee, the cost can easily reach 4k a month.
The biggest joke is that the eligibility of an EC is such that it is only open to those with a combined income of 16k or less. So even if a couple earns 16k a month, the smallest unit they get would likely already cost a quarter of their combined income every month.
So what about the bigger units, the couple would be expected to spend about 50% or 60% of their combined income every month in order to purchase it?
I think HDB needs to review the price and criteria of ECs BTO for young couples cos I dont see how is it meant for young couples. This is probably an example of how government policies are not catching up with the pace of change. Wonder if they are even aware of problem in the first place at all. Anyway after hearing the price, we decided to just go for a HDB instead.