"Sim Lian's announcement of its 'confirmed price range' came in the heels of a letter from the Ministry of National Development to the Straits Times Forum page that it would be reviewing the DBSS as part of its overall review of housing prices."
DBSS is a silly scheme which determines that developers are to profit from (i) a captive audience in the lower to middle income groups, and (ii) government housing subsidies.
I can imagine the internal justification. It's a 'free market'!
If the developers set the prices too high, (i) buyers can choose not to buy, and (ii) 'market forces' will pull down the prices of DBSS flats.
Really?
'Free market'? How big is the market such that it is 'free'?
Did market forces bring the price down in this case?
No lor... It's absolutely State Intervention, albeit 'soft' (without policy changes), causing the developer to lower its prices and profit margins.
The developer yielded because it doesn't want to leave behind a bad aftertaste for this project. There are more HDB/DBSS projects it wants to bid for from HDB in future. No point screwing up their long-term relationship for a few million bucks.
So stop kidding yourselves with 'free market', or 'self-regulation' or any of those euphemistic terms which simply means you don't have to do anything about the difficult situation. HDB and MND have to relook at their roles and approaches, and mostly importantly, with a fresh set of eyes, i.e. officers, coz the existing ones created and/or have not helped with these problems. DUH?
When such situations arise, I always wonder about the officer(s) who put up the policy for approval, and got promoted for it.
Where is he now?
What is he thinking about?
"Heng ah! Posted out oredi!"
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar