Mystery Island!

If you think it was hard to figure out how people were affording houses in Dublin (or Galway for that matter) during the good old boom years, you'd be doubly perplexed over here.

In Singapore, the average salary for a well qualified, middle class, non-managerial position seems to be of the order of 24000 Euro per annum, well below the Irish average industrial wage. Yet, the cost of housing has skyrocketed here in the last few years. You basically have 2 choices; a private condo/apartment or public housing.

The condos are very expensive (even more so than Dublin in its hey day) with the cheapest 2 bedroom unit in the less salubrious neighbourhoods starting at about 400,000 Euro and heading sharply north after that. If you want to rent one, it can cost anything from 1200-4000 Euro/month. Mathematicians reading this will note that this would be a fair whack out of the average monthly salary!

The other option is public housing, which by all accounts, what the ordinary locals have to go for. These high rise flats, called HDB (Housing Development Board) flats, are roughly the equivalent of a council estate at house (like the old Ballymun, but without the horses and the gougers!!!) are considerably cheaper, but even these have become very expensive in recent times.

Now while tax and interest rates are very low here and the market has softened a little, I still can't understand who's filling the condos! There are only so many expats on packages (and not nearly as many as you'd think apparently), high earning managers and successful business people in the place. I don't think they pack 'em ten to a room either, so it beats me!

Given the meagre salary I can expect here, you don't have to be a genius to work out the long term inviability of the situation! And God help you if you have sprogs. Private schooling is expensive and a must over here, unless you want your kid spreaking the incomprehensible gibberish commonly known as Singlish!