What’s the highest you’re willing to pay for rent?
Well, it doesn’t matter what you’re willing to pay. With the rate that rent is increasing, you’d be lucky if your rent is within arm’s reach of what you’re ready to pay.
An HDB flat in Ang Mo Kio was recently rented out at a record price of $6,500. Here’s why this 5-room flat managed to fetch such a high price.
5-Room AMK HDB Flat Rented Out at Record Price of $6,500
The newest HDB flat to make the news for its exorbitant rental fee isn’t located in the city centre as you might expect.
Fortunately, it isn’t the rental fee of a room under the Joint Singles Scheme Operator-run Pilot (JSS-OR), either. Singles eager to move into what many netizens have now dubbed a budget Tekong bunk, rejoice!
Instead, the HDB flat fetching a $6,500 rental is located at Ang Mo Kio Avenue 10. Anti-climatic, we know. At least it isn’t in Yishun.
Yet, it remains impressive that this HDB flat managed to bring home a record price with only 56 years left on its lease.
It bests even the 4-room unit rented out last December for a monthly rental of $6,200 at Block 17, Seng Poh Road. The Seng Poh Road unit had less than 50 years left on its lease and boasts an estimated area of 1,200 square feet.
At the rate that rental prices are increasing, maybe the JSS-OR rooms aren’t that bad after all…
A 5-Room Unit Constituting… Two 3-Room Units?
This 5-room AMK HDB flat isn’t just any 5-room unit—it’s a special one. The unit was originally two separate 3-room units, subsequently connected to form a 5-room unit.
This brings the estimated area of the DIY 5-room flat to 1,400 square feet, even larger than the average 5-room flat in Singapore.
We hope the tenant isn’t a tiger mom, though. You can already anticipate the complaints about cleaning such a large space.
Demand for Rental Properties Proximate to Industrial Areas
The record price fetched by the AMK HDB flat isn’t without reason, either.
According to Lin Jincai (hanyu pinyin) of Altitude Real Estate, some units may fetch higher rental prices as multiple families or individuals share the rental cost in the unit.
Although the $6,500 AMK flat isn’t proximate to the MRT station, it is close to three industrial parks, suggesting that there will be demand for rental flats.
That’s right. Not everyone is concerned about the proximity of their home to the MRT station or a bubble tea store.
The demand is so much to the extent that tenants were willing to pay $6,500 to rent this AMK flat, a cut above the average Singaporean’s $5,000 rental budget, according to Sun Yanqing (hanyu pinyin) from OrangeTee.
Well, at least they’re renting a place independently instead of living under their parent’s roof (ahem).
While the rental market continues to outdo itself on its thousand-dollar rentals, the rental prices in markets are setting their own records—in a wholly different way.
People have been renting stalls in markets for just $1 a month. You read that right, $1.
Just this month, the news came in that a stall owner managed to rent a stall in Holland Village Market for just $1 a month.
And as if Ang Mo Kio didn’t already hog enough of the limelight with their $6,500 HDB flat rental price, you’ll be surprised to find out that two stalls in an AMK market were rented out for just $1 a month a few months back.
A nation of overachievers, indeed.