An empirical analysis of Singapore households’ upgrading mobility behaviour: from public homeownership to private homeownership

Abstract

In contrast to international experiences, Singapore observes a special type of housing related mobility where its public homeowners continually seek to upgrade to private housing. Empirical results have shown that the rising trend of such social mobility has significantly contributed to the volatility of private housing prices. This paper is aimed at analysing why the public homeowners in Singapore prefer to upgrade to private housing. Using a housing choice model with logit regression, the analysis throws light on what determines public homeowners’ upgrading behaviour and what are the wider consequences of such behaviour.