With a slowing property market in Singapore, sectors linked to property sales are starting to feel the impact on their businesses.
It is not all gloomy for these property-downstream companies. Some firms are still finding good opportunities in the private residential property market.
A slew of cooling measures and loan curbs have slowed down property sales transactions in the third quarter this year.
According to property consultancy firm Savills Singapore, the total value of transactions dropped to S$10.15 billion, 45 per cent less than in the third quarter of 2012.
The number of sales caveats lodged for private residential properties including Executive Condominiums between June and September were at about 6,400, compared to 12,304 caveats lodged in Q3 2012.
This has affected the business of some law firms that mainly provide the service of transferring property ownership.
Some property conveyancing firms said business has fallen by one-third.
As staff form the pillars of their firms, there are currently no plans to cut manpower. Instead, they are using the lull period to train staff and improve on work processes.
Some developers have changed tack to cope with the market slowdown and their creativity to push units has resulted in some businesses getting busier.
Besides new property launches, an interior designer said developers are also hiring them to do up mini showflats for projects that have just a few unsold units left.
Roy Teo, CEO of design hub The Mill, said: “These are the show suites that developers would walk clients or buyers through to show them how they could live in that place. What is interesting over the last couple of cycles, it became a norm for developers to sell these units fully fitted.”
While it’s one of the key players in designing showflats, The Mill also design homes for high net worth individuals and hotels. This boosted its turnover by about 20 per cent year-on-year.
The construction industry is also diversifying amid the cooling down in the property market is.
Ho Nyok Yong, chairman of Singapore Construction Association Limited (SCAL), said: “Government projects are plenty anyway because BCA (Building and Construction Authority) estimates that the total turnover for construction volume for the industry is S$28 billion to S$32 billion, which is similar to last year’s.”
With the government looking to build more public flats and rail infrastructure, SCAL expects the construction industry to earn about 55 per cent of their revenue from these public projects.
Source : Channel NewsAsia – 11 Oct 2013