HDB hasn't shrunk flat sizes, says Khaw

[yeokiwi]

I especially like the part where he says people now have more space per person because the average household size has grown smaller. So is it still spurious correlation when we say that smaller house size has led to a decrease in household size?

I guess he assumes that as housing sizes shrink, our brains also shrink along with it, in order to be able to accept this kind of explanation.

A four-room flat, for instance, has remained at 90 sq m since the mid-90s, HDB figures show. HDB has also said that the amount of living space per person has risen, as the number of people in an average household has dropped.


The article put the infamous sentence in. Since he is rather street smart(as compared with the rest of the block heads), I think he would not say that.
But suay suay, the act smart reporter added the sentence in.

[brattzz]

CD shelter room. What for ? They should convert this space into a toilet.

new BTO has CD shelter room which comes with tv plugs... so it can be an entertainment ROOM!

[violinist]

The population increases from 3 million to 5 million, but the buses still arrive every half an hour or so. So the average waiting time per person has actually gone down!

[kazukirai]

A four-room flat, for instance, has remained at 90 sq m since the mid-90s, HDB figures show. HDB has also said that the amount of living space per person has risen, as the number of people in an average household has dropped.


The article put the infamous sentence in. Since he is rather street smart(as compared with the rest of the block heads), I think he would not say that.
But suay suay, the act smart reporter added the sentence in.

I stand corrected. I browsed through the article this morning so I thought he made the point. Ahaha, yea, suay for him.

[Temperament]

Sure or not? i think there is a remark that old folks of Singapore can go and stay in J. B. or something like that when you retire and found Singapore too expensive to live. If my grand choa kong says it, it sound very smart, isn't it?

[wsreader]

After re-reading the news report, I arrived at another interpretation:

There was a one-off exercise 15 years ago to shrink flat size. Since that shrinking exercise 15 years ago, flat size has remained unchanged.
Why then, are people complaining now, a time lag of 15 years?

My guess is that children who grew up in the bigger flats built more than 15years ago has come of age and are forming their own family now. They are the ones who felt the effect of the shrink keenly. Having grew up in their parent's 4 room flats, imagine their disappointment when they purchase a new 4 room flat to form their own family and discovered their new bedroom cannot accomodate the same model of king size bed which their parent had used. And I haven't even talk about the increase in psf price they have to pay. The only consolation is that, when growing up, they had to share the bedroom with their siblings, but now their child has the whole bedroom to herself, a fact which the authorities has not forgotten to point out.

But the good news is, maintain the status quo for another 20 years, a whole new generation who grew up in the shrink flat will not complain when it is their time to buy a new flat. Coupled with the empty nest syndrome, the complaint of small flat size will go away automatically.

[Temperament]

After re-reading the news report, I arrived at another interpretation:

There was a one-off exercise 15 years ago to shrink flat size. Since that shrinking exercise 15 years ago, flat size has remained unchanged.
Why then, are people complaining now, a time lag of 15 years?

My guess is that children who grew up in the bigger flats built more than 15years ago has come of age and are forming their own family now. They are the ones who felt the effect of the shrink keenly. Having grew up in their parent's 4 room flats, imagine their disappointment when they purchase a new 4 room flat to form their own family and discovered their new bedroom cannot accomodate the same model of king size bed which their parent had used. And I haven't even talk about the increase in psf price they have to pay. The only consolation is that, when growing up, they had to share the bedroom with their siblings, but now their child has the whole bedroom to herself, a fact which the authorities has not forgotten to point out.

But the good news is, maintain the status quo for another 20 years, a whole new generation who grew up in the shrink flat will not complain when it is their time to buy a new flat. Coupled with the empty nest syndrome, the complaint of small flat size will go away automatically.

i think you are "absolutely" right in your interpretation. About 15 years ago or more, i purchased my re-saled 4A HDB flat. i were searching for a suitable contractor for renovating my house. Almost every contractor would ask, "Is yours a 5-room flat?" When i said, "NO mine is a 4A HDB". They were all surprised and said the same thing, " The new 5-room flats from HDB is about the same size or slightly bigger only." You can bet your last $, the verdict by the contractors 15 or more years ago was and is still absolutely right.
And don't forget contractors definitely have to know the category's size of your flat before they can give you a proper price quotation. So that's the first thing they want to know before anything else.