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One of the most urgent challenges facing Singapore today, in my view, is the affordability of new Housing Board flats for first-time home buyers. Singapore’s national public housing programme has been lauded around the world for giving rise to one of the highest home ownership rates in the world. A low interest rate and high global liquidity environment in the post-global financial crisis period led to rapid home price increases in Singapore. For many home owners, this upward movement in home prices has allowed them to benefit from an unexpected windfall. To support the property values of existing flats, however, the prices of new subsidised flats have also been pegged to the resale values of existing flats, in effect creating a cycle of price inflation for both categories of flats. Thus, the provision of public housing flats in Singapore can be seen to have generated a set of competing demands. While asset values of homes need to continue increasing to let existing home owners monetise their properties and fund their retirement years, new subsidised flats must also be kept affordable for new entrants. Perhaps we can turn to a suggestion made by former chief planner Liu Thai Ker in 2013 for HDB to keep a “marginal oversupply” of several hundred units to control resale flat prices and ensure demand is being met. A policy like this would be possible in Singapore, since the housing supply is largely determined by policy, rather than market forces. It would provide a short-term buffer against sharp increases or decreases in home prices.