Ranking makes city appealing to global firms wishing to bring in staff: ECA SINGAPORE has emerged as the top place for Asian expatriates to live in for an 11th year running, according to global human resource consultancy ECA International. High quality infrastructure, alongside low health risks, air pollution and crime rates, and a cosmopolitan population make Singapore the best city for Asian expats to...
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77% of total sales of $4.4b came from private market THE investment sales market strengthened further in the first quarter of 2010, as robust sales of residential government land sale (GLS) sites showed developers' hunger for land. Total investment sales came up to $4.41 billion in the first quarter, 16 times more than the paltry $273.83 million in Q1 last year, a CB Richard Ellis report said...
It will embark on plans to reduce home owners' mortgage principal Bank of America yesterday announced plans to start forgiving mortgage loan principal for troubled homeowners who owe more than 120 per cent of their home's value or are battling ever-expanding 'negative amortisation' loans. According to a summary of the programme obtained by Reuters, Bank of America pledged to offer an 'earned principal...
The Real Estate Developers' Association of Singapore (REDAS) hopes that there will be fewer interventions in the private property market. Its president, Simon Cheong, said this would give a freer hand to market forces. Speaking at the launch of the National University of Singapore's national Residential Price Index, Mr Cheong said the recent measures to cool the market did not deter genuine home buyers...
Demand for a new waterfront development, Reflections at Keppel Bay, has been positive, with 98 per cent of the 700 launched units sold as at the end of last month. This was disclosed as the developer Keppel Land topped out the first tower today. It's the first of the six glass towers to be completed in the waterfront residence development. Keppel Land chairman Choo Chiau Beng, who is also CEO of the...
Property consultancy CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) on Wednesday said activity in the real estate investment sales market has started to strengthen with the recovery of the Singapore economy. In the first three months of the year, sales of residential Government Land Sale sites have come up to nearly S$935 million. Activity in the commercial sector, as well as the industrial sector, also picked up. CBRE said...
There is a new price index to provide information on the state of the residential market in Singapore. The index was developed by the National University of Singapore's Institute of Real Estate Studies and is the first such index by an academic institution here. The Singapore Residential Price Index, or SRPI, which tracks month-on-month price movements, will provide a resource for the development of...
The Singapore office property market appears to be bottoming out and the trend of falling rents is stabilising, according to data from consultants Jones Lang Lasalle. This is even though its preliminary estimate of average Prime Grade A gross effective rent in the central business district declined marginally by 0.6 per cent on quarter to S$7.75 per square foot per month in the first quarter. Office...
Senior Minister of State for National Development Grace Fu has explained further the need to cap the number of Permanent Residents in public housing estates. Just this month, the government set the quota for non-Malaysian PRs at five per cent of HDB flats or a total of eight per cent of HDB blocks. In an interview with MediaCorp's Channel 8 Focus programme, Ms Fu said this is a precautionary measure to...
Singapore continues to offer the best living environment for Asian expatriates. This is according to the latest Location Ratings for expatriate living conditions published by ECA International. This is the 11th year in a row that Singapore has held pole position. ECA International's Location Ratings system is used to assist international HR departments to establish expatriate allowances which compensate...