Hi, this is related to HDB issues. Please bear with me on the long rant.
I had an Indonesian friend who asked me about my family. I told him I lived in a HDB 3-rm flat with my family of which there were 5 of us. My wife and I stayed in the master room and the kids lived in the other room. He then asked me a funny question, “What do you do with the third room”. There never was a third room. You see, it was a HDB 2-bdr-room flat commonly called 3-rm flat.
I realized that many foreigners did not know about the unusual naming convention adopted by HDB. Many of my foreign friends thought that Singaporeans were living comfortably in flats with 3-5 bedrooms when in reality, HDB 3-rm/4-rm/5-rm flats were really 2-bdr/3-bdr units. The confusion was real since not so long ago, I had a foreign friend from UK who placed an advanced rental deposit for a 3-rm HDB flat before coming over. To his great anger, there was one bedroom less than he thought.
After explaining to him that his property agent did not misrepresent the facts, and that this was a common description used for public housing here, he left me with a question to ponder, “Why do Singaporeans accept this?” He was referring to the naming convention used by our public housing provider. I had been thinking about this for a while. Recently, there was a HDB 2-rm flat sold for $245k which caused similar confusion among my foreign friends because it really only had 1 bedroom.
I had rented short term housing in US and HK before. They all went by the numbers of bedroom when advertising. In private property market here, condo units were being advertised by the numbers of bedroom as well, say 1-bdrm/2-bdrm/3-bdrm etc. If Capitaland were to advertise a 3-bdrm unit as 5-rm condo, I am sure CASE would be on them very soon.
My point was that we were deceiving ourselves and overstated our social advancements all those years. Most Singaporeans simply lived in 2-bdrm and 3-bdrm flats. There was no gradation between HDB 4-rm and 5-rm flats. I am sorry to tell folks who ‘upgraded’ to 5-rm units, they were simply 3-bdrm flats with a larger size, kind of wearing the emperor clothes all those years.
The non-standard convention of naming HDB flats was also confusing to foreigners and inhibit out ability to integrate with them. We should address HDB flats by the numbers of bedroom. For example, if you write an article “Couple pays $245k for HDB 2-rm flat”, it should be “Couple pays $245k for HDB 1-bdrm flat” because that was what it really was - one bedroom. On the other hand, if you said generic statement like “HDB flats were affordable”, that’s fine since sizes and rooms were not being addressed.
I knew this was a long rant, I really hope we could change the way we communicate the actual public housing situation here so we could better integrate with foreigners, we should be using the numbers of bedroom when referring to HDB flats as in international practice. Why do Singaporeans accept HDB way of counting rooms, I did not understand. Thank you.
I had an Indonesian friend who asked me about my family. I told him I lived in a HDB 3-rm flat with my family of which there were 5 of us. My wife and I stayed in the master room and the kids lived in the other room. He then asked me a funny question, “What do you do with the third room”. There never was a third room. You see, it was a HDB 2-bdr-room flat commonly called 3-rm flat.
I realized that many foreigners did not know about the unusual naming convention adopted by HDB. Many of my foreign friends thought that Singaporeans were living comfortably in flats with 3-5 bedrooms when in reality, HDB 3-rm/4-rm/5-rm flats were really 2-bdr/3-bdr units. The confusion was real since not so long ago, I had a foreign friend from UK who placed an advanced rental deposit for a 3-rm HDB flat before coming over. To his great anger, there was one bedroom less than he thought.
After explaining to him that his property agent did not misrepresent the facts, and that this was a common description used for public housing here, he left me with a question to ponder, “Why do Singaporeans accept this?” He was referring to the naming convention used by our public housing provider. I had been thinking about this for a while. Recently, there was a HDB 2-rm flat sold for $245k which caused similar confusion among my foreign friends because it really only had 1 bedroom.
I had rented short term housing in US and HK before. They all went by the numbers of bedroom when advertising. In private property market here, condo units were being advertised by the numbers of bedroom as well, say 1-bdrm/2-bdrm/3-bdrm etc. If Capitaland were to advertise a 3-bdrm unit as 5-rm condo, I am sure CASE would be on them very soon.
My point was that we were deceiving ourselves and overstated our social advancements all those years. Most Singaporeans simply lived in 2-bdrm and 3-bdrm flats. There was no gradation between HDB 4-rm and 5-rm flats. I am sorry to tell folks who ‘upgraded’ to 5-rm units, they were simply 3-bdrm flats with a larger size, kind of wearing the emperor clothes all those years.
The non-standard convention of naming HDB flats was also confusing to foreigners and inhibit out ability to integrate with them. We should address HDB flats by the numbers of bedroom. For example, if you write an article “Couple pays $245k for HDB 2-rm flat”, it should be “Couple pays $245k for HDB 1-bdrm flat” because that was what it really was - one bedroom. On the other hand, if you said generic statement like “HDB flats were affordable”, that’s fine since sizes and rooms were not being addressed.
I knew this was a long rant, I really hope we could change the way we communicate the actual public housing situation here so we could better integrate with foreigners, we should be using the numbers of bedroom when referring to HDB flats as in international practice. Why do Singaporeans accept HDB way of counting rooms, I did not understand. Thank you.
