I remember my Chinese New Year visits to my grandma, who lived for some years in a one-room rental flat in Chinatown.

She chose to live on her own till she was nearly 90, holding back the day when she could not care for herself any longer.

It was her pristine little flat that I’m sure gave her that extra independence she so prized. We cherish self-determination and so do the elderly.

This diminutive woman from our pioneer days had survived tuberculosis, a world war and widowhood with such a sweet spirit.

I thought of the way she lived her later years with dignity, when some Pasir Ris and Tampines residents expressed great shock that rental flats will soon rise in their midst.

The Housing Board will begin to build blocks of one- and two-room rental flats on the green field between two Pasir Ris blocks.

In Tampines, a new 14-storey block of rental flats will go up.

There was a strong current of fear and anger in the comments of 20 residents reported by The Straits Times:

The new neighbours will look into our living rooms and bedrooms.

Foreign workers will sublet the flats. Smokers and drinkers will loiter in the void decks and lead the young astray.

Our view will be blocked and we will miss the breeze.

Property prices will dive.

The fears should not be laughed off. But we can start to confront them as more rental flats will be spread across the island.

Singapore has 42,000 rental flats now. Another 8,000 will be ready for the needy by 2012.

There has been a cry for affordable flats for the needy. There are also the divorcees and ever-rising silver population. To its credit, the HDB is delivering new rental flats in a hurry. It is housing the nation, not just young couples.

It simply has to use all its ingenuity and technology to create liveable places.

Build beautifully within budget, put in lush greenery or sky gardens, let community bonds spring up, even create an illusion of space. Also communicate with savvy and sincerity so there’s less surprise.

But when does some of that cross from smart strategy to endless pandering?

Because we’re a hyper-dense city, we’re running into what may be the world’s biggest Nimby syndrome – Not In My Backyard.

In principle, we care for the needy, but please let them live somewhere else.

What about me? What’s in my backyard? I’ve lived in HDB flats and now live in cluster housing on the East Coast.

There are no needy dwellers close by. But while a condo was being built across the road, foreign workers were housed on site. We could hear them showering – yes, they work in hot, dusty conditions – when we walked out. They congregated in our pocket park and on pavements at night.

We lived with explosive populations of mosquitoes for a couple of years as well.

I can tell you our place is very dense, and neighbours can look into each other’s homes. I have some view of sky and gorgeous greenery, but not a whole lot. In fact, private developers squeeze much into little, and I feel a greater sense of open space when I pop into HDB estates.

Where I live, there is also a temple along the boundary of our little estate. I hear chants sometimes, and navigate around the cars of temple visitors.

But on my walks, I may also pass a friendly free-range rabbit in a neighbour’s garden. I spy wild flowers, a forgotten toy in the sandpit and colourful songbirds. The best breeze and unblocked view is actually from a hillock next to a HDB estate.

Sometimes it’s a question of perception, what I choose to see. I know I have to do this a lot, because Singapore is such a high-density speck and getting more so.

Maybe we can turn the Nimby syndrome: What if it was me – or grandma?

One day, if we ever need a smaller apartment, will our new neighbours despise our presence?

Surely I don’t want to live in the future Underground Singapore?

I do not like the thought at all of the elderly retreating prematurely into nursing homes when they can age in a place with dignity and inner strength intact, possibly in a rental flat.

My dad remembers that my grandma had neighbours of steady character. They were not the voyeurs and desperados and child corrupters that we imagine will be housed in new rental flats.

I did not really see much of my grandma. But she was still the epitome of an affectionate grandparent who looked on me with love, and travelled independently on buses to see us, often bearing tiny toys that I wish I’d kept.

She died in her mid-90s after living a full life, some of it in her no-frills flat, before she had dementia and entered a nursing home.

As we celebrate family life this Chinese New Year, I hope Singapore will always have room in our hearts and estates for people like her.

Source: Sunday Times, 14 Feb 2010

WHO CAN GET A RENTAL FLAT

• You have to be at least 21 years old. At least one of the occupiers has to be a Singapore citizen or permanent resident.
• Household income cannot exceed $1,500 a month.
• In the family nucleus scheme, the applicant must either be married or living with his or her parents. Applicants who are widowed or divorced and have custody of their children also fall under this category.
• In the joint singles scheme, the flat must be jointly rented by two applicants. Two singles who are at least 35 can jointly apply. This age criterion applies to both unmarried singles and divorcees. Widowed persons and orphans can apply if they are at least 21.

WHERE AND HOW MUCH

• There are a total of 42,000 rental units in Singapore.
• Tenancy is renewed every two years.
• Monthly rent ranges from $26 to $205 for one-room flats and $44 to $275 for two-room ones.
• The units range in size from 280 sq ft to 484 sq ft each.

Rental flats that are currently open for application are:

• Ang Mo Kio: (estimated waiting time is 22.5 to 25 months)
• Bukit Merah/Jurong: (estimated waiting time is 17.5 to 19 months)
• Bedok/Tampines: (estimated waiting time is 20 to 24.5 months)
• Woodlands: (estimated waiting time is 17.5 to 22.5 months)

Information from HDB InfoWEB

Showing prejudice

‘Saying that crime will increase because there are rental flats in the neighbourhood is a prejudice of those who have a vested interest in property values rather than social security.’

PROFESSOR CHUA BENG HUAT of the National University of Singapore’s Department of Sociology

Source: Sunday Times, 14 Feb 2010

For the first 10 years of my life, I lived in a one-room flat in Bedok North that could be likened to a shoebox.

My sister and I slept on mattresses squeezed between the front door and the kitchen. A flimsy wooden partition separated us from my parents’ ‘bedroom’.

There was little space to manoeuvre during the day, which meant that much of our childhood was spent outside in the corridor.

I was certainly exposed to a lot.

I remember a female neighbour – possibly deranged – who walked around topless.

Once when I was walking down the stairs, I shrank in fear when I saw an old man pouring boiling water from a kettle onto a litter of kittens. He then kicked them down the steps.

There were rumours that a neighbour on another floor smoked opium. Another woman regularly ‘borrowed’ (she never paid back) rice and money from her neighbours because her husband was a gambler.

Such memories came back last week when I read about how some residents in Tampines and Pasir Ris are fuming about the construction of rental blocks at their doorstep.

Their list of complaints was long. The value of their flats would drop, they said. The rental blocks were too tall and would block their view and eat into their privacy, they whined.

One remark jumped out at me: ‘Smokers and drinkers may gather at the void deck. Many families here have young children and teenagers. We don’t want them led astray.’

I hope it was a minority view.

Surely smokers and drinkers aren’t confined to residents of rental housing? And I’m sure children of higher-income blocks would not go astray if they have a firm hand (that is, their parents) guiding them.

It is true that rental housing tends to attract poorer folk. After all, if you had the means, would you want to live in so small a flat that watching a late night TV show would mean disturbing the sleep of your family members?

And when you’re poor, it’s inevitable that your life is difficult. And when your life is difficult, some may find refuge in certain ways – a propensity to drink, for example, or to gamble. It is a vicious circle.

Yet, growing up in a rental block, I didn’t have the feeling that there was anything to fear or to be ashamed about.

Yes, there was that half-naked neighbour and the cat-hating one, but they were the exceptions.

Many of my neighbours were more normal than dysfunctional. The majority were decent, hardworking people trying to make a living. Some might have been wayward in their youth – gangsters and such – but they were now trying to play catch-up with their lives. They took honest, albeit low-paying jobs as painters, cleaners and factory operators.

My parents were young, blue-collar immigrants from Malaysia who were saving up for the day we could move into a bigger flat. (We eventually moved to a four-room flat in 1992.)

For families like mine, rental flats are a godsend because cheap rents provide a respite for them as they work to do better in life.

So it saddens me when Singaporeans adopt a ‘not in my backyard’ mentality. It brings to mind too the complaints from landed property residents about the siting of foreign worker dormitories in their midst.

As Singapore progresses, the amount of land left to build homes has become smaller, and rental blocks have to be sited somewhere, don’t they? But have people’s hearts shrunk in the process too?

When I was a child, I would follow my parents when they visited friends living in non-rental units in neighbouring blocks. I don’t remember being given the cold shoulder because we were from a rental block.

In fact, we entertained visitors, too, in our little flat, and had nothing to feel ashamed about. We were part of the community.

Has so much changed in less than 20 years?

Source: Sunday Times, 14 Feb 2010

On another plot of land. Eight storeys instead of 14. Build a condominium instead.

Some Singaporeans are dishing out such orders to the HDB about how and where rental flats ought to be built and their common refrain is, as far from my flat as possible.

While they may be customers of the Housing and Development Board (HDB), do these HDB home owners have the right to make such demands? And at whose expense should their demands be met?

Political observers say residents do not have such rights.

‘Their rights are limited to their own units and do not extend to common property,’ said former Nominated MP Siew Kum Hong, a corporate counsel.

MP for Tanjong Pagar GRC Indranee Rajah echoes that view. ‘It is HDB’s call,’ she said.

But the recent clamour in Tampines and Pasir Ris is the result of the Government getting what it is asking for, said Mr Siew. That is, to make Singaporeans ’stakeholders’ in society.

‘Naturally, they would want to have a say in matters that could potentially impact them and their immediate environment – this is not a bad development,’ he added.

Mr Hawazi Daipi, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Manpower, said ‘it is not an issue of rights, but consultation’.

‘There is a need to inform and consult, and assure residents that potential problems can be managed,’ he said.

Even then, said some, allowing the majority of Singaporeans to feel a sense of ownership cannot come at the expense of the low-income group.

‘They need a roof over their heads,’ said Jurong GRC MP Halimah Yacob.

Ms Indranee concurs. ‘It is wrong to say ‘not in my backyard’. Where are we going to house the poor who cannot afford to buy an HDB flat?’

She also questioned the safety issues raised by home owners, and said this suggests that those living in rental homes are ‘lesser-value human beings’.

‘What is the correlation between rental flat stayers and safety?’ Ms Indranee asked.

Sociologists say there is no evidence that disproportionately more crimes are committed by those living in rental flats.

The prejudices that people may have against the poor are ‘almost always exaggerated’, said Professor Chua Beng Huat of the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) department of sociology.

‘Saying that crime will increase because there are rental flats in the neighbourhood is a prejudice of those who have a vested interest in property values rather than social security,’ he added.

Most fears spring from prejudices towards and stereotypes of the poor rather than actual negative encounters, said Associate Professor Tan Ern Ser of NUS’ department of sociology.

As for whether rental flats lower the prices of property in the surrounding area, most of the housing agents The Sunday Times spoke to said this was not the case.

‘Most people buy a property for access to amenities and parents. Closeness to rental flats has not been a deterrent,’ said Mr Alex Foo, an ERA housing agent.

Popular property districts include Ang Mo Kio, Toa Payoh, Bedok and Bukit Merah, and these areas have a large number of rental flats, agents said.

Some one-room-one-hall rental flats have such good locations that even they are being snapped up in the resale market, he said.

There are units going for $200,000, even higher than prices of some three-room flats.

Launched in 2000, the HDB’s Special Housing Assistance Programme allows existing tenants to buy over their rental flats that have been upgraded at a $15,000 discount.

Source: Sunday Times, 14 Feb 2010

While some flat owners may keep a distance from their rental flat neighbours, Madam Chin Sui Yau is the opposite.

Every Wednesday afternoon, she welcomes more than 10 residents of the rental flats at Blocks 3 and 4 in Marsiling Road to the void deck of her home in Block 5.

She chats and sings songs with the residents, who are mostly elderly and widowed, over tea.

She and her friends from a nearby church treat them to simple snacks – cakes, bananas or red bean soup.

They have been doing this since 2006.

‘They are very pathetic. Some old folk have come from estranged families and have emotional problems,’ said Madam Chin, 56, in Cantonese.

Her eyes were opened to the needs of her neighbours four years ago when she was told about a lice-infested old woman who was living in one of the rental units.

Together with some friends, she decided to bathe the old woman – whose name she still does not know – and cook for her.

‘Her nails were encrusted with faeces and she was eating mouldy bread,’ recalled Madam Chin, a widow with four children.

A few months later, the old woman died. The episode inspired her to make a difference in the lives of others in the rental blocks.

‘I went to Block 3 and started to make friends. This is what we ought to do as neighbours.’

Source: Sunday Times, 14 Feb 2010

It is a room with a view, but not for long, fears housewife Ho Sock Lian, 60.

Not when a block of rental flats comes up on a vacant plot of land across from her block, obscuring her view of the sky and trees.

HDB announced last month it was building blocks of rental flats in Tampines and Pasir Ris. This is part of a move to build 8,000 more rental flats in the next three years.

‘I’m very unhappy because the view will be blocked if the rental block is so high and I think this

will affect the price,’ said Madam Ho of the ninth-floor, four-room flat for which she was once offered $400,000.

Madam Ho’s views echo most of the gripes of residents spread across the Tampines block and those in blocks 475 and 476 in Pasir Ris Drive 6.

Residents in the three blocks found out recently that rental flats were being built near their homes and met Members of Parliament and HDB officials with complaints about privacy and safety.

Many were also upset that they had not been consulted or informed earlier.

However, most of the more than 30 residents who spoke to The Sunday Times said their main objection was over the loss of an unblocked view and breeze, not their fear of possible social problems their new neighbours may bring.

Said a 50-year-old self-employed Tampines resident who wanted to be known only as Mr Lee: ‘It’s unfair to say we are kicking up a fuss that the people in rental flats will cause problems. We’re not discriminating against them, we’re not very well off either. The main issue is that the new flats will block my view.’

The rental block in Tampines is slated to be 14 storeys high. HDB has not said how high the Pasir Ris rental flats will go.

Residents were also worried about congestion, saying it was already hard to find parking and new blocks would create overcrowding.

Many were concerned about losing the value of their flats too.

Residents in both Tampines and Pasir Ris said their three- and four-room flats were currently worth about $330,000 or more. They expect the value to drop below $300,000.

But a few residents admitted they are afraid their rental flat neighbours will make the area unsafe and even seedy.

Said machine operator Rosman Sairi, 44, who lives in Pasir Ris Block 476: ‘It’s been very peaceful in the nine years I’ve been living here and I don’t know what kind of people will be living in the rental block. What if they commit crimes?’

Property agents said the residents’ fears about their flats’ value taking a nosedive were unfounded.

Mr Mohamed Ismail, chief executive of estate agency PropNex, said there has been no trend of falling property prices near rental flat areas, nor are buyers more reluctant to buy them.

‘For buyers, it’s more important that the flats are near amenities and facilities. As for blocked views, any empty plot of land won’t stay vacant for long. Buyers have to be prepared for that,’ he said.

He cited the case of The Bayshore condominium in East Coast, where buyers shelled out big bucks for the sea view, only to be blocked by Costa Del Sol condominium, nine years later.

Mr Chris Koh, director of Dennis Wee Properties, said the stigma surrounding rental block residents is unfair.

‘Many are young people and young families who are just starting out. If they are aiming to buy the rental flats later on, they would be more likely to look after the flat and the neighbourhood,’ he said.

Only a handful of residents interviewed did not mind the rental flats coming up.

Said housewife Noraffnah Hanapi, 33: ‘I’m not intending to sell this place, so its value doesn’t affect me. I’m not worried about my safety either.’

But many were still riled.

Said Mr Swee Huat Beng, 31, unemployed: ‘I just moved in two months ago. If I knew that my view was going to be blocked, I wouldn’t have bought this place.’

Source: Sunday Times, 14 Feb 2010

Housewife Jenny Chia moved out of her old neighbourhood to get away from the rental flats there, only to find out that she will be living next to them again.

In 2003, she moved out of her flat in Boon Keng, which was next to a rental block.

There were ‘gangsters, gambling and drug problems’ there, she said. While she did not see people taking drugs, she saw trails of syringes.

‘It was not a healthy environment.’

She and her husband paid $410,000 for a five-room flat on the 17th storey of Block 192 in Punggol Central.

She later found out that the two blocks of flats that were recently built opposite her home would house rental units.

Shocked, she said: ‘No one informed me. I have the right to know as a resident.’

The two blocks, which are behind a church and across a road junction from where she lives, look well-designed and clean.

The blocks, which appear unoccupied, are also not high enough to obstruct her view.

Mrs Chia, who has a son aged 23, and a daughter aged 10, said she is not as bothered by the appearance of the blocks as by the residents who will move in there.

She is worried that the problems of Boon Keng would be back to vex her.

‘My investments have amounted to nothing,’ she said. But she will not complain to the HDB.

‘It is too late now. The flats have already been built.’

Source: Sunday Times, 14 Feb 2010

First, you are knocked over by the smell of urine. The stench of faeces follows.

This is not a public toilet, but it has certainly been used as one.

‘There is shit all over. I pity the cleaners,’ said security guard B. Krishnair, who moved into Block 5, Marsiling Road last year after her family bought a three-room unit there.

She was describing the void decks of Blocks 3 and 4, which house one-room rental units, just metres away from her block.

When The Sunday Times visited the estate last Wednesday, the pungent smell hit us when we walked to the two rental blocks, although the common areas were free from mess.

The lifts reeked of stale cigarette smoke. The common corridors were quiet and flanked by rows of closed doors.

We saw a man in his 60s clasping a bottle of beer and sitting on the stairs on the 12th storey of Block 3. He appeared to be drunk.

Madam Krishnair, 41, said she had seen men urinating in the void deck of Block 3, and recounted being stared at in the chest by a ‘loitering uncle’.

‘He just walked up to me and looked at my breasts. It is unsafe living so close to the rental flats,’ she said.

Rental blocks made the news last week when some residents in Pasir Ris and Tampines raised a stink upon finding out that the Housing Board (HDB) was going to build such blocks near their homes.

They feared for their privacy and safety if the flats were to be illegally sublet to foreigners. They were also upset about the loss of an otherwise unobstructed view, which might lower the value of their property, they said.

They were also worried about ’smokers and drinkers’ in the void decks leading their children astray.

There are currently 42,000 rental units across the island. They are occupied by those with low income, mostly families, the elderly and singles. Monthly rent ranges from $26 to $205 for one-room flats and $44 to $275 for two-room units.

The Sunday Times visited six housing areas with these flats – Sembawang, Yishun, Choa Chu Kang, Marsiling, Marine Parade and Punggol – and spoke to about 50 residents from the rental flats as well as those in owner-occupied flats.

More than half of the 40 or so non-rental flat residents interviewed maintained they have no problems with rental flats nearby. The rest expressed some concern, and related negative personal brushes with their neighbours.

Madam Krishnair, for one, has already crossed swords several times with them. Her grievances: unrestrained spitting, urinating and defecating in the void decks of the rental blocks.

‘I told the uncles they would be fined for spitting, but their responses were ‘fine, fine lah’.’

Another resident in Block 12, Marsiling Road, located two blocks from the rental flats, said she did not dare wander around her neighbourhood after dark.

The 40-year-old clinic assistant, who declined to be named, frequently hears shouting, presumably from the two rental blocks. ‘I do not know who they are and do not want to know them,’ she said.

In Choa Chu Kang, a resident who wanted to be known only as Madam Ng, said she has seen men unzipping their trousers during the day at the void deck of Block 9, a rental block along Teck Whye Lane.

She has been living in the adjacent Block 11 for 25 years. ‘I avoid walking past the block after dark,’ said the 58-year-old housewife.

She said her son, now 21, was molested 11 years ago by a man in the lift in Block 9 after visiting a friend there.

There was nothing amiss when The Sunday Times visited the void deck of Block 9, but we spotted 10 men and women in their 40s to 60s playing cards there.

Some residents from Block 11 described them as ‘the gamblers of Block 9′. But we were unable to verify where they live as they did not want to be interviewed.

Like Marsiling’s rental blocks, Teck Whye Lane’s Block 9 had cigarette burn marks on the floors of lifts and spray-painted graffiti at the lift lobbies. Its stairways and common corridors had litter.

Mr Ang Mong Seng, an MP for Hong Kah GRC, said that rental blocks, just like regular blocks, are cleaned once a day in the morning.

‘But we also need residents’ cooperation. Sometimes after the morning cleaning, the block gets dirtied in the afternoon,’ he said.

On the hygiene problems at Marsiling’s rental flats, Mr Hawazi Daipi, an MP for Sembawang GRC, said he has not received any complaints.

In the last 12 years, some residents had given feedback on cleanliness and safety, but the feedback did not portray the precinct ‘as one that is crime-ridden and unliveable’, he said.

‘The precinct is far from that,’ he said, adding that the police patrol the area regularly.

A different world, however, exists in Yishun, Sembawang and Marine Parade.

There, flat owners and tenants of rental flats seem to get along better. In fact, most of the residents in Yishun and Sembawang interviewed were not even aware that the new flats that popped up last year were rental units.

Mr Kamis Abdul Rahman, 55, who has been living in Block 439 in Yishun for 21 years, did not know that Blocks 436 and 438 were rental flats. The part-time library assistant said he is on good terms with his neighbours. ‘If they don’t bother me, I won’t bother them.’

Another resident, Mr Selan, 30, who did not want to give his full name, said he bought a flat in Yishun even though he knew it was near a rental block.

The Sunday Times understands that over 20 families – mostly in their 20s and 30s – have moved into the two rental blocks in Yishun.

Over at Marine Parade, a 31-year-old executive in a charity organisation said she bought a unit in Marine Terrace Block 18 about six years ago to be near her in-laws.

This was more important than the fact that there are five rental blocks in her estate. ‘I do not mind living next to them. They need a roof over their heads just like any one of us,’ she said.

Most of the 10 rental flat residents interviewed said they did not feel any discrimination as they kept mainly to themselves.

Retiree Tan Teck Seng, 56, who lives in Block 3 at Marsiling Road, said he had good relationships with his rental flat neighbours. He has not had a chance to befriend those living in other blocks.

A cook who gave her name as Rose, 43, and who rents a unit in Block 9, Teck Whye Lane, said she was too tired to socialise after work.

Source: Sunday Times, 14 Feb 2010

The growing presence of international schools in suburban areas may lead to a pickup in private suburban rents this year.

Expatriates with families could choose to relocate to these areas for purposes of convenience, said HSR Property Group’s head of special projects, Mr Dennis Yong.

International schools are being built in suburban areas like Districts 17, 18 and 19, he said.

District 17 spans across Changi, Loyang and Pasir Ris. Next to Pasir Ris, Tampines and Simei make up District 18. In the north-east, District 19 encompasses Hougang, Punggol and Sengkang.

Some international schools in these areas include the Australian International School and the Stamford American International School, both in Lorong Chuan in Upper Serangoon in District 19.

The former moved to Lorong Chuan in 2003, and the latter last August. In Tampines, The United World College of South-east Asia will be opening its new east campus by next year. Its present east campus is in Ang Mo Kio. Its main campus is in Dover Road.

Based on Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) data on median rental rates in the third and fourth quarters of last year, rents in these districts have seen some notable increases.

Loyang Valley rates have gone up by 29 cents to $1.77 per sq ft per month (psf pm). At Estella Gardens in Pasir Ris, rates went up by 24 cents to $2.11 psf pm.

Rents at properties in District 19 (Hougang, Punggol and Sengkang) – like Chiltern Park, Chuan Park and Compass Heights – have gone up by 31, 24 and 23 cents respectively.

Director of research and advisory at Colliers International, Ms Tay Huey Ying, said the presence of international schools will help contribute to leasing demands. Ngee Ann Polytechnic real estate lecturer Nicholas Mak said rental gains will most likely be in properties located closer to the schools.

For this year, Colliers expects marginal increases of 0 per cent to 3 per cent in suburban rents.

Savills Singapore also maintains the view that suburban rents will remain stable with small gains, if any.

Away from suburbia, things are also looking up for high-end rentals. Non-landed properties in prime districts – Orchard, Bukit Timah, River Valley, Newton, Marina Bay and Sentosa – saw a 0.9 per cent increase in rentals in the last quarter.

Prime rents have appreciated, largely due to the improving economy, resilient local job market and the return of expatriates, said director of corporate residential leasing at Savills Singapore, Mr Patrick Lai.

Savills expects that high-end private home rents will hold steady and rise up to 10 per cent this year. But movements will ultimately depend on supply and demand, Mr Joseph Tan, executive director, residential at CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) added.

Depending on the types of expats and if there is demand for the more than 3,000 new high-end homes expected to be completed this year, rents will increase at a gradual pace, he said.

Mr Donald Yeo, executive director of marketing at HSR Property Group, sees city-fringe areas, where rentals had increased by just 0.1 per cent in the last quarter, to hold more promise. Rentals in city-fringe areas are relatively more economical and expatriates are not averse to commuting, he said.

Mr Tan of CBRE believes that though competition for tenants will be keen, city-fringe rents could see more significant increases if economic growth remains on track.

Mr Lai said that according to last year’s fourth quarter URA data, private housing supply this year will be about 7,584 units – lower than last year’s 10,448 units. With lower supply and healthy leasing volume, rents are ‘likely to remain on the upward trajectory this year’, he said.

Source: Sunday Times, 14 Feb 2010