Short-term trading profits in real estate are not high, while the risks are considerable. DENNIS NG shows you the numbers IT'S tough enough figuring out which housing loan package is the best for you. But how will the latest changes in property financing rules affect your property purchase? The recent curbs on the property market include measures such as the scrapping of interest-only loans, capping...
General
PETER OW and ONG KAH SENG examine high-end residential properties that may see increasing buying interest from foreigners and locals THIS is the year that high-end residential properties are expected to shine. Indeed, prices of luxury homes could recover by at least 10 per cent in 2010, bringing them close to the all-time high at end-2007. As Singapore's economic recovery takes hold, the traditional prime...
With relatively few landed home launches, buyers are always keen on older houses in the resale market, writes HAN HUAN MEI WHEN private home prices made their sterling recovery in the second half of 2009, landed homes didn't miss out on the action. The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) price indices for detached, semi-detached and terrace houses recovered by 22-26 per cent in 2H 2009, after falling some...
Developers shift focus to affordability, say NG WEI EN and CHUA CHOR HOON LAST year saw the second highest volume of private residential transactions in history, with the 30,830 caveats lodged falling short only of the 37,304 recorded in the 2007 boom. A combination of factors helped to boost demand for residential property. These were pent-up demand from those who had missed out on the previous boom,...
DESMOND SIM says demand likely from financial, biomedical sectors THE leasing market for non-landed homes showed signs of recovery in the final quarter of 2009, going by Urban Redevelopment Authority numbers. Median rents saw their first quarter-on-quarter growth of 0.5 per cent following five quarters of continued decline from a peak in Q2 2008. The monthly median rent in Q4 2009 was $3.02 per sq ft....
Collective sales of such properties tend to be slow SINCE the phenomenon of collective sales started in 1994, there have been over 400 en bloc developments sold to date. Of these, only a handful, possibly about 10 or so, were mixed developments, that is, buildings with a variety of uses like shops, offices and apartments. Most of the successful en bloc sales were purely residential developments, or those...
Singaporean Norsiah Suja'i thought she had found her dream home when she forked out her life savings to buy a double-storey terrace house in Johor Baru in 1998 for more than RM335,000 (S$141,500 now). Instead, the retired teacher and 72 other Singaporeans in Taman Permata are about to lose their property to the developer's bank - after the developer went bust in 2000. The bank won a court order from the...
I REFER to Mr Bobby Jayaraman's letter, 'New measures won't help market bloom' (Feb 23). There may be room to re-examine market statistics in greater detail and consider sharper tools to tackle specific problems instead of slapping stamp fees on sellers across the board. The Urban Redevelopment Authority keeps statistics of property transactions. Nineteen different headings are listed for each...
THE Government has to shoulder some of the blame for the short supply of land and high property prices, said Mr Simon Cheong, president of the Real Estate Developers' Association of Singapore (Redas), yesterday. Mr Cheong told the audience at the launch of a new property price index that land values are largely determined by the Government's reserve price system that features in all state land tenders....
A NEW index that tracks the price of private non-landed homes month by month has been created to help owners, investors and other property watchers keep a handle on the fast-moving market. The Singapore Residential Price Index (SRPI), as it is called, has been formulated by the National University of Singapore (NUS) after two years of research. It functions much like the Straits Times Index for shares...