Singapore HDB flats rated the most “attainable” among APAC capitals, but netizens say it is only affordable by comparison

Singapore’s HDB flats being named the most attainable homes among Asia Pacific capital cities reads like a victory lap. It is also a statement about definitions. ULI’s index uses a hard line. To count as attainable, median home prices must be no more than five times median annual household income, and median rents must be no more than 30 percent of monthly income. That framing turns a political argument into a product metric. By that metric, Singapore’s public housing clears the bar for purchase, while most big cities do not.

Zoom in on the ranking and the nuance sharpens. Across 51 market segments in 41 cities, only seven segments offered home purchase at or below five times income in 2024. Only three of those sat in major cities: Singapore HDB, Melbourne, and Kuala Lumpur. Singapore is the only national capital on that short list. So the headline is right, but the field was small by design. The five-times-income rule is a high bar in global hubs, which is the point ULI is making.

The rental side tells a different story. Regionally, renting looks far more attainable than buying, with 41 of 51 segments under the 30 percent income threshold. In other words, the index is less a cheer for ownership and more a snapshot of a system where tenancy often does the heavy lifting for shelter. Singapore’s exception status on the purchase side says more about its housing architecture than about regional demand.

Here is the operator lens. Attainability is a ratio, not a vibe. If the denominator grows faster than the numerator, the ratio breaks. Singapore protects the ratio by controlling inputs that most markets leave to drift. Public land control, centralized planning, and a dedicated public developer compress land and delivery costs and then route the benefit into a standardized product with grants and eligibility gates. That is not a soft power. It is system design. ULI’s own write-up is blunt that government policy is the primary driver of market conditions in this region.

Critics inside Singapore still look at prices and feel squeezed. Both feelings can be true. The index says a typical HDB flat meets the five-times-income rule. Residents say the outlay still feels heavy for young families, especially with shrinking usable space and tighter lifestyle fit. The metric does not measure space per capita, time-to-key collection, or how grant ladders interact with life stages. It does not capture lease decay anxiety on aging stock. An index can certify the price-to-income target and still miss texture.

There is also a distribution story inside the headline. About 77.4 percent of resident households live in HDB dwellings. That concentration is a feature, not a bug, because it lets the policy machine move median outcomes. When most households live in a standardized product, the median is more controllable. That is how a capital city lands in the “attainable” bucket when peers like Hong Kong or Tokyo do not.

Access remains the quiet limitation that the index will not solve for you. Singapore routes demand with eligibility rules and taxes that discourage non-target buyers from bidding up the same supply. The most visible example is the 60 percent Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty on foreign buyers of residential property, implemented from April 2023 and still in force. If you are not in the citizen or PR bucket, the “attainable” sticker does not apply in any practical sense. The price-to-income ratio is irrelevant if policy keeps you out or taxes you out.

What should founders, product leads, and operators learn from a housing index? First, define your metric like ULI did. The definition does half the persuasion. Second, control your inputs if you want predictable ratios. Singapore’s housing flywheel works because upstream levers exist, from land to build-to-order cadence to resale rules. Most markets try to hack the downstream with subsidies after the fact. That is cosmetic. Third, keep your eye on the gap between “median” and “lived experience.” The five-times rule is clean, although families feel the pinch where space, commute, and childcare converge. Friction is not only fiscal.

The debate about shrinking flat sizes and laundry space hangs over this announcement because it is a product-fit complaint, not a macro one. You can satisfy the price-to-income test and still frustrate users if design constraints ignore day-to-day realities. That is not a failure of attainability accounting. It is a reminder that the housing product has UX, not just economics. When residents hang clothes out of windows, they are telling you what the spec sheet hid.

There is also the regional signal inside the ULI data. Melbourne and Kuala Lumpur showing up alongside HDB tells you that purchase attainability at scale needs either a supply path that dampens land capture or a demand path constrained by policy. Cities without those levers will drift toward rental attainability and ownership exclusivity. That is not a moral failing. It is math under different conditions. The ULI trend lines point to rental sectors as a pressure valve, which matches how most young households are actually navigating cities in 2025.

So does the accolade matter? Yes, if you care about a rules-based metric that shows Singapore’s housing system doing what it claims. No, if you expect a medal to change how a new parent experiences a 93 square meter flat. The index validates the price-to-income design of HDB. It does not settle arguments about space, lifestyle fit, or the cultural expectations of home. Both truths can coexist without canceling each other.

The clean takeaway is this. The ULI Asia Pacific Home Attainability Index 2025 is a model answer to a model question. Singapore scores because it built a system that shapes the model inputs. Residents grumble because models do not fold laundry or put kids to bed. The policy posture remains clear. Ownership at the median stays within reach for citizens because the state keeps the levers aligned, while rental stays broadly attainable across the region because it is structurally easier to deliver than purchase affordability in global hubs. That posture may look modest. It is not. It is deliberate system math.