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There's a lot of off-topic flamebait in there, but let me focus on the small part of your comment that's on-topic. > A first time home owner credit helps, but

There's a lot of off-topic flamebait in there, but let me focus on the small part of your comment that's on-topic. > A first time home owner credit helps, but most of the credit will be absorbed by the market in the form of increased home prices. The article addresses this concern with an evaluation of the policy in Singapore. A 9.8% increase in home purchases comes with a 1.1% increase in price. We don't have any way to know the effect of the policy in the US, but it's hard to understand why the only effect would be a higher price.

darth_avocado 2y ago
I don’t think it is reasonable to take that at its face value. The are a lot of differences between the housing market in Singapore and US. For one, almost 80% of residents live in public housing and for a very long time, there were restrictions on the sale price of that house. Since the restrictions have been removed, Singapore has seen a spike in the housing prices. Which brings me to the second difference: Singapore is already very expensive to buy a house in as compared to the incomes, and home ownership rate has remained at around 90% since the 80s. So a 9.8% increase in home purchases is not that big of a number because the total home purchases remain low (only 2000 units were sold in Singapore in the first half of 2024). Understandably, the market prices won’t be impacted that much if 200 more units were sold. Other differences include: government building more housing regularly, tight control over population growth through immigration, etc. California saw a 7.4% increase in median sale price when the number of purchase were down 8% in June of 2024. We shouldn’t be using what worked in Singapore as an indicator of what will work here. https://www.redfin.com/state/California/housing-market https://www.redfin.com/state/California/housing-market
- tharmas 2y ago
  Yes. Good post. In the English speaking world houses are a financial asset. In Singapore houses are homes to live in. No matter how many condos and houses you build they will be bought by speculators. A lot of the QE since 2008 went in buying assets which includes houses. Now the Fed is trying to shrink the money supply.

darth_avocado 2y ago

I don’t think it is reasonable to take that at its face value. The are a lot of differences between the housing market in Singapore and US. For one, almost 80% of residents live in public housing and for a very long time, there were restrictions on the sale price of that house. Since the restrictions have been removed, Singapore has seen a spike in the housing prices. Which brings me to the second difference: Singapore is already very expensive to buy a house in as compared to the incomes, and home ownership rate has remained at around 90% since the 80s. So a 9.8% increase in home purchases is not that big of a number because the total home purchases remain low (only 2000 units were sold in Singapore in the first half of 2024). Understandably, the market prices won’t be impacted that much if 200 more units were sold. Other differences include: government building more housing regularly, tight control over population growth through immigration, etc. California saw a 7.4% increase in median sale price when the number of purchase were down 8% in June of 2024. We shouldn’t be using what worked in Singapore as an indicator of what will work here. https://www.redfin.com/state/California/housing-market https://www.redfin.com/state/California/housing-market

tharmas 2y ago
Yes. Good post. In the English speaking world houses are a financial asset. In Singapore houses are homes to live in. No matter how many condos and houses you build they will be bought by speculators. A lot of the QE since 2008 went in buying assets which includes houses. Now the Fed is trying to shrink the money supply.