Million dollar homes- who's buying?

According to a Straits Times report, average sales value of both resale and new condos crossed the S$1 million mark in Q2 this year.
You wonder who's snapping up these homes when the government reported that median household income in 2010 was just S$5,000. This figure is also likely to be skewed as Permanent Residents are kneaded into the calculation. So the actual income is in all likelihood, lower than the figure published.
Without a strong and independent Press, our politicians will continue to use statistics as a smokescreen.
Indeed, a publication by the World Bank describes how a free press is no longer a luxury but essential to equitable economic development.

In an effort to revitalise the nation (and win votes), Malaysian PM Najib promised to review press controls and media censorship. Following his speech, there are even calls to totally abolish such stifling laws.
Will PM Lee ever do the same?
Will we ever find out the actual standard of life of Singaporeans and Singaporeans alone?

The PAP has always played the "housing value" card whether at elections or a Sunday luncheon.
MM Lee continues to forewarn that without the PAP, our housing value will fall. The former Minister Mentor even went so far as to challenge Aljunied GRC voters to compare the GRC's housing values with Opposition run Hougang estates.
Unfortunately for him, they didn't listen.

In 2002, there was a study by IMF covering 16 OECD nations that claimed that rising housing prices have positive effect on consumption. This would be music to our ministers' ears.
Bearing in mind that the sample size consisted mainly of developed states in Europe and North America, does the study apply to Singapore?
A Singapore Management University faculty member, backed by the Wharton-Singapore Management University Research Centre did her own study using Ministry data and rejected the findings.
This paper claimed that rising housing prices did not create wealth effect. Rather, there was some evidence to say that "house price increase appear to have a dampening effect on aggregate consumption".
One implication of this is that "policy makers should treat housing wealth as distinct from other assets when considering the impact of wealth on consumption".

Put simply, rising housing value does not necessarily mean that standard of living is improving or that Singaporeans spend more.

One key reason could be that unlike the OECD countries studied, many Singaporeans have their retirement savings wiped out by housing loans.
Another possible reason is the relative low purchasing power of Singaporeans caused by stagnant wages and a general lack of subsidies on anything from petrol to healthcare. This is confirmed by the widely circulated UBS Prices & Earnings Study.

Thus, it will be interesting to know who are the ones buying those million dollar properties.
What's pretty clear, not all are Singaporeans.