Nina Brown lost her townhouse to foreclosure due to recession. That was not the only house she lost, but another three. She now lives in a rented home. The American Dream of home ownership is crumbling. With recession, foreclosure, and more recession in the pipeline, more Americans are giving up on home ownership. This seems to be a new trend in the world’s biggest economy.
Could this be something that Sinkies would be looking forward to, renting their homes instead of home ownership, though some are saying that we have been renters all the time, at least 80% of them living in HDB 99 year leasehold flats? This is another story.
At the moment many are still in the property speculation game when money makes money and lots of money without having to work. Would the same outcome in America hits us the same way when a major recession comes along? Would our young and new home owners, with their massive debt from housing loans ended like Nina Brown, facing foreclosure and become the statistics of a new fad, renters.
We are following closely at the heels of the Americans in everything they do. When they got a cold, we will surely have one as well. How long can we hold before the next wave of recession and foreclosure hits the City? The only way to avoid such a crisis is to push property prices higher and kick the can further down the road.
But if we are to listen to what came out of Parliament, the problem crisis is over and we should be congratulating the ministers and ourselves that all is well. No longer a problem, all problems solved. In fact it is time to raise the prices of properties or else the developers would start to kpkb again.
What do you think? The next dream will be not owning cars.
Chua Chin Leng AKA RedBean
*The writer blogs at http://mysingaporenews.blogspot.com/