It is well known that the majority of Singaporeans live in public housing (that is, housing provided by the Housing and Development Board, or HDB). However, what you may not know is that the majority of residents obtain their housing through a model that shares some high-level similarities with the way we deliver new condominiums in Toronto.
In 2001, the HDB introduced a program known as Build-to-Order (BTO). The way it works is fairly straightforward: the HDB announces a new project, prospective buyers apply and are assigned a queue number, and then, if they're selected, they get to buy. Once a sufficient number of "pre-sales" have been obtained, the project begins construction, and buyers get a brand-new, subsidized apartment in 3 to 5 years.
Singapore also mandates that the apartments must be owner-occupied and so, in this carefully controlled delivery model, supply very closely mirrors demand. This is different from traditional condominium pre-sales where some buyers might be end users, some might be planning to rent out the home, and some might want to sell immediately upon completion. In those markets, the risk of overbuilding and speculative volatility is greater.
HDB classifies the apartments themselves into three groups: Standard, Plus, and Prime. This classification is meant to reflect the locational value of certain projects; but importantly, the intent is that they're all equally attainable to citizens. The difference is that "choicer" locations (their vocabulary — now you have a new Scrabble word) require greater subsidies to make them affordable, and so they come with additional obligations.
For example, in the case of Prime flats, there is a subsidy recovery upon any future sale (I'm told it's between 6-9% of the first resale price), the minimum occupation period (MOP) is 10 years (versus 5 for the Standard class), and you can never ever rent out the whole home, even once the MOP has lapsed. Once again, this is about strictly matching new supply to end-user demand.
It's a lot of rules. But in Singapore, the majority of people accept them in exchange for affordability.
Cover photo: Tengah, Singapore via Monocle
Howard Chai recently reported in the Globe and Mail on the number of "distressed" commercial real estate transactions that Canada has seen over the last few years:
2023: 119 transactions totalling $767 million
2024: 191 transactions totalling more than $1.5 billion
2025: 252 transactions totalling more than $1.42 billion
These numbers are from Altus Group and they, importantly, only include sales involving a court proceeding. They do not include properties sold at a loss because of financial distress or any other such scenarios. This means that the actual amount of "distress" in the market is certainly greater. We're all just holding on.
The hardest-hit asset class is, not surprisingly, development land. This makes sense because the value of development land is mostly binary right now. Either you can do something productive with it (in which case there's value) or you can't, and it's illiquid. Land is risky. It just doesn't seem that way when the market is hot.
The theme of the article is that the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better. Jeremiah Shamess of Colliers is cited as saying he thinks we will see the "emergence of a bottom" late this year or early into 2027. He must have read my annual predictions post in January, where I argued the same.
These periods of time always suck for everyone involved. But as is always the case in markets, the faster we deal with the pain, the faster we'll get to the other side. Failure is an essential part of capitalism. As many have said: "Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without hell."
Cover photo by Damian Kravchuk on Unsplash
Regular readers of this blog might remember that last "summer" (it was still chilly), I biked for brain health here in Toronto.
I rode 75 km, raised $3,800, and helped Multiplex Construction Canada raise over $14,000, with 100% of these donations going directly to the Baycrest Foundation to fund work related to dementia, Alzheimer's, and other brain-related illnesses.
This summer I'll be riding again on Sunday, May 31, 2026, except with a few changes:
They've moved the starting location to the Aga Khan Museum (architecture by the Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki).
They've increased the longest circuit to 90 km.
We've created our own Globizen team! If we're feeling really ambitious, maybe we'll even create our own cycling bibs. (This strikes me as a low probability scenario.)
If you're up for it, I would encourage you to join our team and ride for brain health. Alternatively, you can always just participate with your wallet.
Full disclosure caveat: Bianca and I are expecting our first child (a girl) in June. This ride is closeish to the due date, creating at a minimum three possible scenarios for the day:
Scenario one is that she is not yet born on May 31 and I ride as one would expect.
Scenario two is that she is born early, and I then spend this Sunday morning at home in some kind of sleep-deprived state. (Or, the "vibe" is that I should probably stay home.)
And I suppose scenario three is that I don't finish the ride and I end up at the hospital in head-to-toe lycra, clicking and clacking around in my cycling shoes.
Scenarios one and two feel more optimal, in my humble opinion.
Cover photo: Len Abelman (Principal at WZMH Architects) and me completing the Bike for Brain Health end-of-summer follow-up ride in September 2025.