Singapore’s World Famous Public Housing System Is Strained by an Overheated Market

Singapore is one of the three most expensive cities for real estate, according to Julius Baer. It is also one of the world’s most affordable cities for housing — better than Tulsa, Oklahoma — consultancy Demographia says. How is this possible?

The paradox of the tiny nation’s property market has fascinated urban planners for decades. Born in 1960 from a dire overcrowding crisis, the government’s wildly successful Housing & Development Board has produced one of the world’s highest home-ownership rates: over 90%. Effectively, it lowered the bottom rung on the property ladder for young citizens, offering subsidized, well-maintained public housing that are in stark contrast to the dilapidated, crime-tainted public projects in many other cities.