A changing demographic makeup is fuelling a boom in Singapore single-person properties.
Could that influence retailers – both online and offline?
Research issued by real-estate platform HugProperty discusses how the growing number of single-person households is driving up the demand for housing. Jointly authored by HugProperty co-founder Ku Swee Yong and undergraduate Shannon Aw Qian Tong from the Department of Real Estate at the National University of Singapore, the report says single-person households comprised one in eight Singapore residences in 2010.
“Given rising singlehood rates, we forecast that by 2030 one in five households will be occupied by just one person.”
They further estimate that the number of single-person households will increase from 139,800 (12 per cent of total households) in 2010 to 218,500 in 2020 (16 per cent of total households) and 297,300 in 2030 (19 per cent).
The rate of increase in resident households will outpace the slow population growth, becoming a key demand driver for shoebox-sized homes in Singapore.
“A big contributor to the growing number of single-person households in the next 20 years will be widowed households,” they write. “Our large ageing population of baby boomers will start to pass on in greater numbers in about 10 to 15 years’ time.”
The retired and surviving widow/widower would be classified under the household survey as an extra single-person household, but would probably already have a home so there is no nett increase in housing demand.
While the report did not address impact on industry, beyond property valuations, there are clear implications for retailers both online and offline.
Similar trends in countries like Japan in recent years have lead to a rapid increase in convenience stores and smaller basket of purchases in supermarkets – for two reasons: firstly, smaller houses have less storage so shoppers are less likely to stockpile food, bathroom supplies and other goods, because they have nowhere to keep them. Secondly, single person householders consume less than two-person households, theoretically producing greater demand for small pack sizes of perishable foodstuffs like bread.
