Two former real estate salespersons have been convicted and sentenced for offences including referring their clients to moneylenders. They are 52-year-old Mustafa Kamal Seri and 39-year-old Ghazali Bin Mohamed Rasul, both Singaporeans. The Council for Estate Agencies (CEA) said in a statement on Friday that Ghazali is also the first salesperson it has prosecuted for money-lending offences. Mustafa...
General
The en bloc market has slowed significantly this year as developers turned cautious following the government's cooling measures and loan curbs. The value of en bloc transactions fell to S$1.3 billion so far this year, down from S$1.4 billion in 2012 and S$3.2 billion in 2011, according to property consultant Jones Lang LaSalle. Eunosville is up for en bloc sale for the second time, after its first...
With a 30 per cent cap on how much house buyers can borrow to finance their executive condominiums (ECs), analysts expect developers to release more smaller-sized units for sale. However, sales for EC units are expected to slow down with the measures, especially since December is traditionally a lull period for the property market. Authorities have capped the Mortgage Servicing Ratio (MSR) for...
The tender for the industrial site at Gambas Crescent (Parcel 3) attracted a total of four bids, with Grow-Tech Properties placing the highest bid at S$39.33 million. According to data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), Grow-Tech Properties' bid is 21 per cent higher than the second highest bid by First Shine Management Services. The other two bidders were Eco-I which submitted a bid of...
Moody's Investors Service says the outlook is stable for Singapore's Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) sector in the year ahead. Based on a report released on Monday, the ratings agency says a larger asset base and rent increases on existing properties are expected to fuel growth for the 13 REITs it rated. It forecasts that the earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization...
Real estate agents are expecting to incur higher marketing cost in 2014 when the new Do Not Call rules kick in on January 2. From December, consumers who do not wish to receive telemarketing messages can register their Singapore telephone numbers with the Do Not Call (DNC) Registry. Property agency PropNex says it could even prompt some agents to leave the industry. To market a property...
The en bloc property market is stirring again with the launch of two collective sale tenders yesterday — one at the former Housing and Urban Development Company (HUDC) development Eunosville and a smaller one in the affluent postcode of Jervois Road. Eunosville, a 330-unit housing project opposite Eunos MRT Station, has been re-launched at an unchanged reserve price of S$688 million after its maiden...
The property market here may be losing its shine, as Singapore falls out of the top five Asia-Pacific real estate investment destinations for next year in a joint survey of industry professionals by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and the Urban Land Institute (ULI). The PwC-ULI report, Emerging Trends In Real Estate Asia Pacific, found that Singapore fell to seventh place for 2014 from third place this...
The government has introduced three measures to refine its Executive Condominium Housing Scheme. "The government will implement three measures for Executive Condominium (EC) developments to bring the terms for ECs closer to that for public housing, and help support a stable and sustainable EC market," said a Ministry of National Development (MND) statement on Monday. Reduce EC Cancellation Fee The...
Ms Chu Kin Lan has already closed six out of 11 offices of her Hong Kong real estate agency, whose Chinese name translates as Precious Prosperity, and let go of half of her 70 employees amid the city’s toughest curbs on home buying in its history. But the worst pain may be still to come. As many as 10,000 real estate agents are forecast to lose their jobs, according to Centaline Property Agency, as...