Singapore public housing survey.

Public housing in Singapore is developed and maintained by Singapore's Housing & Development Board (HDB). And the Board's apartments are locally known as HDB flats. Every five years the Board does a large scale survey of residents, and the results of the 2003 survey were published in June 2005.

What follows is a brief summary of key findings.

Households were living in higher quality accommodations than they were when the previous survey was taken in 1998. At that time, 52 percent of households were living in a four room apartment compared with 60 percent in the 2003 survey.

Survey respondents demonstrated a rise in real income. Monthly household expenditures increased 0.9 percent over the five year period while Singapore's CPI increased only 0.4 percent.

Residents in the HDB flats overall evidenced a higher standard of living than was recorded during the 1998 survey. Two prominent indicators of this were higher rates of home ownership, and higher rates of ownership of consumer durables. During the five year period, home ownership increased from 91 percent of residents to 92 percent. The HDB said one of the most significant measures of higher living standards among residents was that residents in the lowest income quintile increased their home ownership rate from 75 percent to 80 percent during the period.

Significant also were sharp increases in several consumer durables categories. In the 1993 survey only 20 percent of residents owned a CD player. A decade later, 80 percent of residents owned one. Even more striking was telephone ownership. In 1993 less than one out of 10 residents owned a "handphone". Ten years later, in 2003, the situation had reversed completely with 9 out of 10 residents owning one.

Personal computers showed striking increases as well. In 1993, only 20 percent of HDB households had a personal computer. By the time the 2003 survey came around personal computer ownership had surged to 70 percent of households. Similarly, households with internet access increased appreciably. In 1998, 23 percent of households had internet access. Access more than doubled by 2003 to 56 percent.

MARKET FOCUS: