Despite signs that sentiment has been weighed down by global credit woes, property consultants are still keeping to a bullish outlook for the Singapore property market. They are expecting to see further upside in prices of as much as 50 percent over the next 6 to 18 months. This is despite the industry taking a slight breather and a general cautionary mood among investors due to the US sub-prime mortgage...
General
The average age of all developments which applied for collective sale from January 2005 to end-August 2007 was 25.9 years. This was revealed by Deputy Prime Minister and Law Minister Professor S Jayakumar in a written answer to questions from Nominated Member of Parliament Mr Siew Kum Hong. Professor Jayakumar said the average percentage of owners who had signed the collective sales agreement at the time...
Despite the market turmoil in recent months over the US housing credit crisis, property developers are still seeing strong demand for new residential units. Numbers out from the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) on Monday showed that property developers not only launched more units in August than in July, but they have also made more sales. Nonetheless, market watchers said sentiment has been weighed...
The forlorn silence at the Tang Dynasty City in Jurong could, come January, be replaced by the rumblings of bulldozers. Just months after it seemed the former tourist draw might be given a new lease of life as a Shaolin attraction, hope of a rescue now seems extinguished, as a call went out for consultants for the demolition works. On Tuesday, landlord JTC Corporation called for an expression of interest...
Before the Strata Titles Board (STB) can decide the fate of the S$548-million Gillman Heights en bloc deal, two minority owners have questioned the Board’s jurisdiction to hear the application. They applied this week to the STB to vacate the hearing due to start in two weeks’ time, when objections from minority owners were supposed to be heard. But lawyer Eddee Ng of Tan Kok Quan Partnership said his...
IT was the “goblin” that wreaked havoc on markets the world over but come Oct 31, investors may be celebrating Halloween for more reasons than one. The goblin that is the impact of the United States sub-prime mortgage problems could go away as early as then, and growth would return by year-end in time for Christmas, said Mr Ken Fisher, CEO of Fisher Investment. Saying the sub-prime spook had been...
IT HAD seemed like a walk in the park for Phoenix Court residents en route to a windfall, when the owners of all but one of the units agreed to sell off their apartments collectively for $88.1 million. But just 11 days to go before the owners were due to pocket $1.8 million each, the sale has been stalled indefinitely — in a complicated legal saga that demonstrates why impending sweeping changes to the...
WITH just four months to go before 2007 draws to a close, private-sector economists have given the economy the thumbs up, predicting that the Republic will power ahead with 7.5-per-cent growth this year. This is up from an estimate of 6 per cent in the last Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) survey in June. And next year, Singapore could enjoy economic growth of 6.5 per cent, up from a previous...
Trade and Industry Minister Lim Hng Kiang has urged developers and contractors not to price in expectations of increases in costs into their tenders for projects. Speaking to reporters on the sideline of a groundbreaking ceremony on Friday, he said that the government would continue to manage the increase in cost of steel and other materials and try to mitigate the impact of higher costs. He said: “The...
The government is raising property development charges with effect from Saturday. This follows the regular six-monthly review on development charge rates. For non-landed residential use, the charge was raised by an average of 58 percent with prime areas like Cantonment Road seeing the biggest jump of 112 percent. For commercial use, the hike is an average of 42 percent. Market watchers say an increase...