Housing Crisis Compared UK, Singapore, Vietnam & Japan Price-to-Income Reality
I spent last weekend teaching myself how to read price-to-income ratios across four countries I'm obsessed with: the UK, Singapore, Vietnam, and Japan. The numbers? Honestly wild.
I'm 18, so the "housing crisis" isn't some abstract policy debate—it's the reason my generation jokes about never owning anything except maybe a house deposit spreadsheet. But comparing these four markets showed me something unexpected: we're not all facing the same problem.
The Data I Found
UK: Price-to-income ratio around 8-9x in cities like London, 5-6x in the North. We built 234,000 homes last year—we need 300,000 minimum. The maths doesn't work.
Singapore: Ratio hits 14x for private property, but here's the twist: 80% of residents live in HDB public housing where the government controls supply, pricing, and access. It's expensive, but it's managed.
Vietnam: This is where it gets brutal. Ho Chi Minh City requires 20-25 years of full income to buy a 70m² apartment. A 31-year-old marketing manager earning $1,400/month told me she's been working for 9 years and saved $8,000—barely enough for a down payment on a $120,000-160,000 flat.
Japan: Rural "akiya" (abandoned homes) going for ¥500,000 ($3,500), while Tokyo studio flats cost $400,000+. It's not a crisis—it's a split-screen economy.
What I'm Learning
The UK loves talking about "planning reform," but after comparing our output to Singapore's systematic approach, I'm realizing we're not even playing the same game. Singapore doesn't just build homes—they engineer housing ecosystems with BTOs (Build-To-Order), ethnic quotas to prevent segregation, and aggressive cooling measures when speculation heats up.
Vietnam's middle-class squeeze is teaching me something darker: when you industrialize at breakneck speed without coordinating housing policy, you get what I'm calling "the factory worker paradox." Vietnam's manufacturing boom created millions of jobs paying $300-1,200/month. But luxury condos are rising 15-20% annually while wages grow 8-10%. The math is devastating.
I found data showing young Vietnamese save only 10-15% of income—you need 30-40% to ever afford a home. Bank loans require 2-3 years stable employment, collateral, and 8-12% interest rates. If you earn $1,000/month, a $600-800 mortgage payment is suffocating. The government's introduced 5.9% preferential loans, but supply is limited. Meanwhile, rent consumes 40-50% of income in Hanoi and HCMC—well above the healthy 30% threshold.
Here's what shocked me: Vietnam's parents needed 5-7 years of income to buy homes in the 80s and 90s. Now it's 20-25 years. That's a generational wealth transfer breakdown in real-time.
Japan's demographic reality (shrinking population, negative immigration) creates the inverse problem: too many homes, not enough people. Yet Tokyo stays expensive because everyone wants to be where the jobs are.
The Bridge
Here's the pattern I'm seeing: the UK and Vietnam both have a "missing middle" crisis, just for different reasons. Vietnam builds luxury towers factory workers can't afford. We build "affordable housing" requiring £40k deposits young people don't have.
Singapore's model isn't perfect—private property is insanely expensive—but their HDB system proves government intervention can keep homeownership accessible if that's the actual goal. Could Newcastle or Manchester adopt a public-private housing split? I'm still trying to understand whether our political system would even allow it.
My Honest Take
I'm learning this through IMF datasets and housing ministry reports, not lecture halls. But the brutal truth: we're the first generation across the UK, Singapore, and Vietnam where traditional homeownership timelines have completely broken down.
Our parents' playbook doesn't work anymore. The question isn't "why don't I have a house yet?"—it's "what are the new rules for building wealth when the old ones are dead?"
What I'm Reading This Week:
- The HDB Story (Singapore housing policy)
- World Bank Vietnam Urbanization Report 2024
- "Akiya Banks" documentation via MLIT Japan
Is housing a ladder to climb or a foundation to stand on? Still figuring it out. What are you seeing?