Is sg property cheap now?

[weijian]

Nothing is wasted here. Currently a few projects from Shenton way till Vivocity are not doing very well. You can drive around the entire stretch at 8 PM, around 70% of the units are dark. There are many unsold units there.
There is insufficient demand for condo. So the next group of buyer is richer-HDB-locals, who can't afford to pay $1500 psf. The government did a good job on maximizing profit with Price Discrimination.

What I mean if you to sell as entire condo project vs HDB on same plot of land regardless where, surely there is more returns to national reserve if is condo.

Indeed. Selling HDB without including its land costs was once rebuked by some minister as "raiding the reserves."

One can 'maximise the reserves,' by only selling land to private developers. But then the landless will soon or later revolt. As we are seeing now in HK.

Thankfully, SG government is wise enough to return to a moderate level of economic growth, and further wealth redistribution. But this is also only possible because of the existence of institutions for political change; better listen and give in to the people, or they'll certainly vote you out. So Singaporeans have to be thankful not only for the existence of institutions for democracy (erules of law, electoral process, etc), but also the participants, such as opposition political parties, their flaws notwithstanding. If there are no contestants, and no institutions for democracy (like in HK), condo prices may have doubled since 2013.

The GSW is indeed a lottery-like handout. Perhaps not unlike Pinnacle@Duxton. This is wealth redistribution. Pork barrel politics? Maybe. And besides, what good is a government if the lives of the governed are no better. But would the alternative -- selling the land to private developers, and allowing market forces to decide who the buyers will be -- be preferred? Not to the average Joe, I reckon.

A key difference between SG and HK gov is that land sales go straight into reserves for SG but land sales go to the annual budget for HK (termed land premiums in this link).
The structure of this setup for HK incentivises increasing land prices, and i remember someone on VB.com did comment that the person who setup SG's structure (goes into reserves) was a genius.

For SG, the GE in 2011 had to be the wake up call - Ministers' salary were modified from "Top X income earners in the country" to 4 "more down to earth, below the ivory tower" benchmarks like median+bottom 20% percentile income growth, unemployment rate and real GDP growth. I guess the only difference between SG and HK is that the former has elections? Probably this also explains why the protesters are asking for universal suffrage i suppose?

HK budget: https://www.legco.gov.hk/research-public...0416-e.pdf
SG ministers salary white paper in 2012: https://www.psd.gov.sg/docs/default-sour...d-govt.pdf