Building of Mickey Mouse Units

I'm disappointed on the development of mickey mouse units. More and more units are getting smaller. The smallest that I have come across is about 350 sq ft which is approximately the size of a hotel room. There are just too small to set up a family or even for a couple to live.

Although Singapore is pretty crowded, there are still lands available. Take a closer look around us and you will notice forests and empty lands. Singapore is not similar to Toyko and New York where lands are very limited and developers have no choice but to build mickey mouse units.

Developers are purely building smaller units to make more profits. Let's take ABC as a development. The developer of ABC can build either 20 units x 1000 sq feet or 57 units x 350 sq feet. As developers know that the smaller unit is, the higher pricing it will be, the developer starts to build smaller units. Instead of pricing at $800 per sq foot, it will be priced at $1200 per sq foot. It may look cheaper as a condo unit is priced at $420K (350 sq ft) rather than paying $800K (1000 sq feet). A dumbo buyer will just step in and buy without much consideration because he thinks that it's cheap and is able to rent out to expats.

With this, it causes the private prices to go up unknowingly although the economy has not been fully recovered yet.

Nowadays, government has been urging Singaporeans to have more babies. With the development of this mickey mouse units, it's will be tough to set up a family. Others may think that we can just stay in normal units rather than buying mickey mouse units but the problem is "IT'S FREAKING EXPENSIVE" to buy a bigger unit. I often wonder why the government has no control. If they have control over a fully paid HDB flat which rightfully belongs to an owver, why they do not control over this issue which the land rightfully belongs to government? In long term, Singapore will become like Japan where the percentage of elderly will be much higher than the young. By then, it's too late for remedy.

As I am looking for a unit to stay, I have called several agents and they kept on recommending and telling me that mickey mouse units will be in hot demand in the next few years. The thing is "how do they know" even when all the mickey mouse units have not been developed yet. Some agents told me that the rental charges are able to fetch a 5% yield but "how do they know" as well when the mickey mouse units have not been developed and tested in the rental market. When I asked this questions to the agents, they will say that they will be more and more expats coming in especially when the IR has opened. But common sense told me that those employed in IR will definitely have a place to stay now.

Probably, it's good to buy it and charge hourly rental (illegally) since there are so many "foreign talents". Definitely hot demand!