Prices of resale private homes dipped by 0.4 percent in January, according to the Singapore Residential Price Index (SRPI) flash estimate published by the Institute of Real Estate Studies at the National University of Singapore. It is the second straight month of decline, after resale prices fell by 1 percent in December. The SRPI for January showed that resale prices for private homes in the central...
General
Private residential property prices are expected to fall as much as 12 per cent over the next three months. This is according to analysts who also expect demand for private homes to decline as well over the next few months. Analysts say the recent move by the Government to introduce additional buyer's stamp duty (ABSD) as a further cooling measure may dampen demand from potential upgraders who make up the...
The phrase "asset rich, cash poor" is a common refrain in Singapore. But property watchers said schemes aimed at helping elderly Singaporeans unlock the value of their homes, are slow to find favour. That's because the schemes are either too restrictive, or not well understood. The Lease Buyback Scheme was introduced in March 2009 to help low-income elderly living in 3-room and smaller flats unlock the...
Business operators caught up in the messy changeover of landlords at Turf City Mall have been left in limbo once again. The court has discharged an earlier injunction, which stopped the outgoing landlord from evicting existing sub-tenants who wanted to stay on. With the latest turn of events, outgoing master tenant, Singapore Agro Agricultural (SAA) said it now has the right to evict sub-tenants or...
Recent newspaper articles have increasingly laid blame on real estate investment trusts (REITs) for the rising occupancy costs in retail and industrial properties. In fact, in my earlier article in this newspaper titled "Hawker centres and REITs: An inflation face-off?" (Nov 25, 2011), I also highlighted that REITs, in their relentless pursuit of superior shareholder returns, have generally been very...
When property agency bosses at a seminar early this month predicted a 3 to 5 per cent fall in the prices of Housing and Development Board (HDB) resale flats for this year, possibly declining up to 10 per cent should economic conditions worsen, it prompted a few prospective buyers to ask me whether this was news too good to be true. The forecast was reinforced by data released a week later by three major...
Property developer Keppel Land said Takashimaya will be an anchor tenant in its upcoming mixed-use project in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. In a joint news release, Keppel Land said the retailer will take up 15,000 sq m of retail space across five floors of its Saigon Centre Phase 2, which broke ground in November last year. It signed the conditional agreement with Takashimaya Singapore. Keppel Land said it...
Nature lovers can soon look forward to a new nature park on Coney Island, off Punggol. It will be the ninth nature park in Singapore. The park will be ready in two years, and is part of the government's plans to build 20 new parks over the next five years in the Northern, Eastern and Western parts of Singapore. Coney Island is connected to Punggol Promenade by a bridge, but it is not open to the public...
The mass-market segment will still be resilient in the coming months, particularly for developments in the Outside Central Region (OCR). Last year, mass market homes, excluding executive condominiums (ECs), hit a record, selling 65 percent or 10,374 units of the total number of new private homes in the OCR, based on the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s (URA) figures. Comparatively, OCR home sales...
Around one in every 10 Singaporean is 65 years old and above, which means the resident population of 3,789,300 citizens and permanent residents (PRs) is indisputably an ageing population. In light of this, recent reports have focused on the issue of land scarcity for building centres for the elderly who have contributed to nation-building. That is why acquiring investment portfolios prior to retirement...