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One property analyst expects Build-To-Order (BTO) flats to be reduced by between 30 and 50 per cent next year.
SINGAPORE: The government has said it will be scaling back the supply of new flats in 2014.
This year, the HDB launched over 25,000 Build-To-Order (BTO) flats.
One property analyst expects BTO flats to be reduced by between 30 and 50 per cent next year.
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Saturday opened two new facilities at the Singapore Botanic Gardens – the SBG Heritage Museum and the CDL Green Gallery - built by the National Parks Board and Singapore-listed City Developments Limited (CDL).
Both buildings, located at the Holttum Lawn, commemorate Singapore’s 50 years of greening initiatives and the property firm’s 50th anniversary. The CDL Green Gallery is Singapore’s first zero-energy gallery.
SINGAPORE: The recently released Draft Master Plan by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) has promised more green spaces around planned new neighbourhoods, and experts say this could help reduce the environmental impact of urban growth significantly.
But they also emphasise that environmental sustainability will require more than just the building of facilities and hardware.
The government's measures to cool the residential property market have had significant impact: Transaction volumes have plunged, new home loan sales have contracted and loan-to-value (LTV) ratios have improved.
"The series of property-related measures taken by the government over the past few years has dampened momentum in the market," said the Monetary Authority of Singapore Financial Stability Review 2013 yesterday.
But the government remains vigilant as price levels remain high, it said.
MAS review shows household debt rising, but savings piling up faster; cautions that risks remain-
Singapore households have been given a clean bill of health as far as their debt is concerned. Despite warnings of an increasing exposure to mortgages, net wealth has grown robustly over the past decade and stands at about four times GDP, according to the Monetary Authority of Singapore Financial Stability Review 2013
Singapore households have been given a clean bill of health as far as their debt is concerned. Despite warnings of an increasing exposure to mortgages, net wealth has grown robustly over the past decade and stands at about four times GDP, according to the Monetary Authority of Singapore Financial Stability Review 2013.
The property curbs over the past few years have slowed home lending and are squeezing speculators out of the market, the central bank said yesterday.
But it warned that prices remain high, mortgage debt is still rising and some households could be hit if interest rates rise.
Home loans grew 12 per cent in September from the same month last year, down from a peak of 22 per cent growth in September 2010, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said in its Financial Stability Review 2013 report.
This is because, now that pent-up BTO demand has been addressed, the two markets largely serve different groups.
"The profile of buyers going for resale flats and BTO flats is generally different," said R'ST Research director Ong Kah Seng yesterday:
Analysts were responding to remarks by National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan, who said on Monday that the Housing Board's "massive construction programme" would start to be tapered off next year.
The massive construction of HDB flats will start to taper off from next year as balance is restored between demand and supply in the market, Minister for National Development Khaw Boon Wan said.
But "we will do so in a measured way, to allow the market to gradually adjust, just like what we had done to cool the property market earlier."
"Three years of sustained ramp-up have begun to restore the balance in our housing market," he wrote on his blog yesterday as the latest launch of 8,952 Build-to-Order (BTO) and Sale of Balance Flats (SBF) units last month drew to a close.
Economic miracles sometimes need course corrections, even in Singapore, which last year was home to more U.S. dollar-millionaire households per capita than any other country, according to Boston Consulting Group Inc.
From 1959 onward, under the leadership of Lee Kuan Yew and his successors, Singapore transformed itself into a rich hub for a range of industries, from financial services to transportation, to pharmaceuticals, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in the September issue. From 1960 to 2010, the city- state’s GDP increased 41-fold, to 285 billion Singapore dollars, as it became the world’s second-busiest container port and fourth-largest financial center. Three of the world’s six strongest banks are based in Singapore, according to a June Bloomberg Markets ranking.
Singapore's land and labor limits will “increasingly constrain” its economic expansion and the city state must adjust to lower growth rates as compared to the last two decades, Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen said.
The island’s citizen workforce will begin shrinking starting in 2020 for the first time in its history, and the nation needs to improve social services and health care programs to help a larger elderly population, Ng said in prepared remarks for a speech in Parliament today. He spoke as Leader of the House.
Singapore will increase spending on population-growth measures by 25 percent, rolling out incentives ranging from government-paid time off for adoption and paternity leave to funding for fertility treatments.
An annual budget of S$2 billion ($1.6 billion) will be set aside for measures including state-funded childcare leave, healthcare costs and financial support for housing to married couples, the government said in a statement today. That’s an increase from S$1.6 billion in the last package in 2008, it said.
“The enhanced package aims to provide more comprehensive support for Singaporeans in getting married and starting their families,” the government said in the statement. “Addressing our falling birth rate requires a concerted effort beyond government initiatives.”
Singapore's central bank warned that rising global interest rates could weigh on household and corporate debt and pose risks for banks in the city-state.
A 3 percent increase in mortgage rates would boost the share of overly indebted households to as much as 15 percent from 10 percent now, the Monetary Authority of Singapore MAS said in its annual financial stability review today. Banks also need to guard against credit quality deterioration as rates increase after Singaporean companies’ median debt-to-equity ratio rose to 39 percent at the end of June, the authority said.
Singapore’s home sales fell 52 percent in September from a year ago, signaling that the government’s efforts to cool its property market are working.
Home sales fell to 1,246 units last month compared with 2,621 in September 2012, according to data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority released today. From the previous month, sales increased 65 percent from a revised 756 units sold in August as developers marketed more projects, the data showed.
Record home prices amid low interest rates raised concerns of a housing bubble and prompted the government to widen a campaign that started in 2009 to curb speculation in Asia’s second-most expensive housing market. Singapore unveiled new rules in June governing how financial institutions grant property loans to individuals, in addition to previous curbs including new taxes and higher down-payments.
Singapore, the city-state that banned chewing gum to curb litter, is showing the rest of Asia how to cool a housing bubble.
The government this year ramped up efforts to bring down property prices that surged to a record, adopting some of its strictest measures, including a cap on debt at 60 percent of a borrower’s income, higher stamp duties on home purchases and an increase in real-estate taxes. The combination and timing of the curbs is the most comprehensive among governments battling housing bubbles, according to Vishnu Varathan, an economist at Mizuho Bank Ltd.
The curbs are proving more successful than in Hong Kong and China where policy makers have experimented with a variety of initiatives to temper soaring housing markets. Home prices in Singapore have gained 33 percent since 2009, while they have more than doubled in Hong Kong in the period.
Home sales have been declining in the past four months compared with figures last year after the government imposed new rules in June governing how financial institutions grant property loans to individuals. Record home prices amid low interest rates raised concerns of a housing bubble and prompted the city-state to introduce new taxes and higher minimum down-payments since 2009 to curb speculation in Asia’s second-most expensive housing market.
“Developers have been a bit apprehensive about the sentiment so they seem to have marketed fewer projects,” said Nicholas Mak, an executive director at SLP International Property Consultants in Singapore. Home buying has “stabilized”, he said, citing the fact that 90 percent of the homes marketed were sold last month, based on today’s data.
About 2,600 Employment Passes (EPs) were not renewed in the first half of this year, said Acting Manpower Minister Tan Chuan-Jin in Parliament on Tuesday.
Responding to Nominated MP R Dhinakaran, Mr Tan said slightly more than half of the EPs that were not renewed were from the lowest tier, or Q1 pass holders.
The Singapore office rental market was stable in Q2 2013, since Grade A office rents only fell by an average of 0.4 percent quarter-on-quarter. This was the smallest quarterly decline since it fell consecutive quarters from Q4 2011.
Thus, there are hints that office rents are on the way to recovery by 2014. In fact, rents could potentially stabilise across the board from H2 2013, after which limited vacant space will allow landlords to renew leases or make new offers at higher rates since there might be fewer competing choices elsewhere. The economy in the U.S. might improve and if that leads to a worldwide improvement in economic conditions, MNCs may be in a better position to plan for expansions into key markets in Asia.
More foreign projects are being launched in Singapore, and interest is strong
Overseas property continues to lure local investors with developers seeming to jet in every other weekend offering new launches.
DTZ Singapore research head Lee Lay Keng said about 107 London projects alone, including student accommodation blocks, have been brought to Singapore for sale by various agencies this year.
Consultancy Colliers International data shows an increasing number of Singapore investors have been buying London property over the past 12 months, about 25 per cent more than a year earlier.
Mr Julian Sedgwick of Savills Singapore says: "It is hard to track the number of different launches in Singapore but we have certainly seen an increase in the number of launches this year compared with last year."
New legislation that begins on Friday 1 November makes it easier for foreigners to invest in Mongolia and will increase confidence in the property market.
Overseas property buyers will now find it easier to invest in Mongolia, thanks to new legislation that comes into effect today (Friday 1 November).
The new law means that individuals no longer need government approval to invest in strategic industries.
The Strategic Entities Foreign Investment Law, which restricted investments in strategic sectors, by requiring government or parliamentary approval for transactions, is being repealed.
Property prices in Istanbul, Turkey's largest city, have risen substantially in the last three years, and are showing no signs of cooling.
Istanbul-based property consultants Universal21.com noted how the pace of property price growth in the city has quickened in recent months as both local and foreign investor interest in investing has increased.
In August this year, the price of a new home in the city had risen by an average 2.66 percent month-on-month, and by 13.80 percent year-on-year. This is more than 1 percent higher than Turkey’s national average of approximately 12 percent over the same period.
