Additional Buyers Stamp Duty ABSD - Property Launches & Investments

High stamp duty troubles Singapore real estate

Posted by Property Launch Invest on Monday, 21 December 2015 in Property News

ABSD or additional buyer’s stamp duty at 15% is a big liability for developers

SINGAPORE: Singapore is caught between a rock and a hard place.

On the one hand, a slowing Chinese economy and sputtering global trade are squeezing growth in the small Asian city-state. On the other hand, the mighty Federal Reserve's sway on global interest rates is causing a sharp jump in the island's benchmark borrowing cost.

There's one – and perhaps only one way – for Singapore to wriggle out of the tight spot: scrap “ABSD.”

Cooling Measures Update

Posted by Property Launch Invest on Friday, 12 December 2014 in Property News

One conclusion that we can draw from the Cooling Measures is that placing limits on borrowing is more effective than levying stamp duty taxes at bringing Singapore property prices down.

According to the SRX Property Index for Private Resale Flats, the first Additional Buyers Stamp Duty (ABSD1) did little to impact both resale volume and prices.

Singapore Property Market Cooling Measures

Posted by Property Launch Invest on Friday, 12 December 2014 in Property News

Below is a comprehensive view of the latest government policies related to the residential property market. These policies are often referred to as the 'Property Market Cooling Measures'.

6 Reasons Why Property Curbs Should NOT Be Removed

Posted by Property Launch Invest on Tuesday, 25 November 2014 in Property News

There have been recent calls to the government asking to relax some of its property-cooling measures as demand for real estate wanes. Mr Getty Goh, director at Ascendant Assets voiced his view on this, speaking at a Business Outlook Forum recently.

He said the government should consider repealing the Seller Stamp Duty (SSD) for residential properties introduced in January 2011, because sellers who are keen to dispose their properties may find themselves tied down by it.

Buyers shun luxury city apartments despite price falls

Posted by Property Launch Invest on Monday, 15 September 2014 in Property News

Luxury apartment sales in the city centre sank markedly in the first half of 2014, revealed a CBRE report.

According to caveats data for the Core Central Region (CCR), there were 48 transactions of properties costing $5 million and above in the first six months of the year, compared to 78 and 107 deals in H2 2013 and H1 2013 respectively.

Why is it too soon to relax Singapore property measures

Posted by Property Launch Invest on Monday, 15 September 2014 in Property News

Prices have to fall by 10% first.

The sales drought will continue for Singapore’s residential developers, as the country’s stringent property cooling measures aren’t expected to ease anytime soon.

According to Barclays, the relaxation of property cooling measures would be premature, despite the continuous softening in property prices, even though year-to-date developer sales have declined 54% y/y.

Singapore a global role model in property cooling: Bloomberg

Posted by Property Launch Invest on Wednesday, 10 September 2014 in Property News

Other countries can't handle their housing bubbles.

Singapore has lowered down housing prices by 3.7% over the past 12 months, as other cities like London, Manhattan and Sydney struggle to keep their housing prices from surging.

Bloomberg says that Singapore and Hong Kong did not even break a sweat as it reined in home prices by imposing measures including mortgage caps, taxes on property flippers, and levies on foreign buyers as high as 15%.

Impact of Singapore's property cooling measures on sales and prices

Posted by Property Launch Invest on Friday, 22 August 2014 in Property News

Recent cooling measures have clipped the wings of the once-soaring private property market in Singapore.

Tough measures such as a total debt servicing framework, which restricts a borrower’s monthly debt repayments to at most 60 per cent of his gross monthly income, has driven some buyers to aim for smaller homes with cheaper total prices.

Here's a look at how private home sales and prices have changed with each round of curbs.

Singapore Central Bank Says Too Early to Ease Property Curbs

Posted by Property Launch Invest on Thursday, 07 August 2014 in Property News

Singapore's central bank said it’s too early to ease property restrictions after prices in Asia's second-most expensive housing market fell for three straight quarters.

Real estate prices “remain at elevated levels,” Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, said at the release of its annual report today. “It’s very important that we secure the gains that we’ve made in stabilizing the market and restoring financial prudence.”

Singapore’s property stocks fell for the first time in eight days as the central bank signaled its determination to extend a campaign that began in 2009 and included tighter mortgage rules and extra taxes. Residential values in the island-state dropped for a third quarter in the three months through June, the longest losing streak in five years.

Home prices seen dipping further for rest of 2014

Posted by Property Launch Invest on Thursday, 03 July 2014 in Property News

Market players attribute slide in private market to competitive prices by developers, softening rentals

[SINGAPORE] Amid the current supply-demand imbalance, the gradual decline in private home prices is set to continue for the rest of the year after three quarters of decreases, say property consultants.

Too early to relax property cooling measures, says MND

Posted by Property Launch Invest on Thursday, 03 July 2014 in Property News

It is still too early to roll back property cooling measures, according to the Ministry of National Development (MND) yesterday.

It said that although home sales have decreased, prices have remained relatively stable.

The moves to rein in property prices included extra stamp duties to curb speculative buying and the total debt servicing ratio framework which was introduced a year ago.

MND noted that private home prices had surged 60 per cent during the most recent market upswing that began in mid-2009.

Govt Unlikely to Remove Curbs Soon

Posted by Property Launch Invest on Monday, 02 June 2014 in Property News

Home prices are likely to fall further before the government rolls back the property cooling measures which were imposed since 2009, according to Standard Chartered in media reports.

“You would start to take away some of these measures if price growth reaches a certain level of equilibrium,” said the bank’s CEO for ASEAN, Lim Cheng Teck. However, he believes this is not the case yet.

Chesterton Singapore’s Managing Director Donald Han also holds a similar view: “It’s still too early to remove curbs. The government will monitor but their fingers won’t be pressing any buttons at this point in time.”

Summary of the Singapore Property Cooling Measures

Posted by Property Launch Invest on Tuesday, 29 April 2014 in Property News

This page aims at giving an overview of the current regulations regarding residential property transactions in Singapore, result of the 8 rounds of cooling measures made by the authorities since 2009.

List of Property cooling measures by URA/MAS.

Posted by Property Launch Invest on Sunday, 27 April 2014 in Property News

Here is the full list of the 8 recent property cooling measures.

Budget 2014: Singapore says it is too early to relax property cooling measures

Posted by Property Launch Invest on Sunday, 20 April 2014 in Property News

Singapore said Friday that measures it had implemented to cool down the property market have succeeded but it was "too early" to relax them.

The remarks by Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam in parliament came amid concerns by analysts about property prices soaring to unsustainable levels in emerging markets, including those in Asia.

Lower sales, hefty extensaion chargesfeared to knock down Singapore's luxury segment

Posted by Property Launch Invest on Thursday, 17 April 2014 in Property News

Buyers likely to delay purchases.

According to CIMB, given supply concerns and policy curbs, it expects a buyers’ market with little pricing power for the developers in 2014-16. CIMB predicts a 10-15% drop in property prices in the next two years but expects high-end developments to be affected by a greater degree with looming extension charges and higher price sensitivity within upgraders.

Here's more:

Ultra-wealthy prefer residential property as investment

Posted by Property Launch Invest on Thursday, 27 March 2014 in Property News

Property remains the favoured asset class among Ultra High Net Worth Individuals (UHNWIs), with almost a quarter of their investment portfolio accounted for by property, according to Knight Frank’s Wealth Report.

In its UHNWI Attitudes survey which was jointly launched with the Bank of Singapore and involved nearly 600 private bankers and wealth advisors, over 40 percent of respondents said their clients increased their allocation to property in 2013 while 47 percent expect it to rise further this year.

Singapore’s housing conundrum

Posted by Property Launch Invest on Friday, 24 January 2014 in Property News

In the last few days, an article published in Forbes magazine on the housing bubble in Singapore and its comparison to the bubble in Iceland has circulated widely. In the new millennium, Iceland banks had grown far bigger than the economy of Iceland itself. When the global crisis struck, property values plunged and Icelandic banks collapsed. So did the country’s economy. Hence, by putting Iceland in the title, the author succeeded in attracting attention.

Luxury home market fares worst in 2013

Posted by Property Launch Invest on Saturday, 11 January 2014 in Property News

Property prices in prime districts ended the year stuck in the doldrums, leaving luxury housing as the worst performing segment of 2013.

Luxury home prices fell by 2.1 per cent last year - reversing the 0.8 per cent rise recorded in 2012.

The decline has been slow and steady and began in the second quarter, when city-centre prices fell 0.2 per cent from the first three months of the year.

They fell again - down 0.3 per cent - in the third quarter and dropped a far steeper 2.2 per cent for the three months to Dec 31, according to Urban Redevelopment Authority flash estimates yesterday.

Targeted cooling measures would be more effective

Posted by Property Launch Invest on Wednesday, 11 December 2013 in Property News

Curbs such as ABSD and TDSR do not seem to have produced the desired results

Housing loans

Completed private residences

Loans granted to homes under construction

THE first part of this article last week concluded that the Singapore household balance sheet is rock solid: household net worth is increasing because household assets such as shares, CPF, currencies and savings are increasing more than household debt.

PROPERTY LAUNCHES & INVESTMENTS

Property Launches & Investments

Curbs such as ABSD and TDSR do not seem to have produced the desired results