Fewer flats changed hands last year. Latest data from the Housing and Development Board (HDB) showed a sharp fall in the number of resale transactions – at 24,633, down 24 per cent from 2010.
PropNex CEO Mohd Ismail said the various cooling measures introduced by the government have dampened demand and supply.
He said the lowering of the Loan-To-Value (LTV) ratio to 60 per cent for a second loan means fewer people would buy a second home and release their HDB flat onto the market.
“The 24,633 is in fact an all-time low. We have not seen such figures in the last 10 years or so. This is attributed to a little more stringent cooling measures. The increase in MOP, a minimum occupation period of five years even for resale flats… such measures have deterred people who have the intention of selling or buying, upgrading or downgrading,” he said.
Resale transactions rose slightly by 0.3 per cent in the last three months of 2011, compared with the third quarter.
Property watchers said the median cash-over-valuation (COV) continued to fall in the fourth quarter.
PropNex’s Mr Ismail said his firm’s transactions registered an 8 to 15 per cent drop in COV across the various housing types.
He said COV continues to drop another 5 per cent in January.
HDB’s data also showed that subletting of HDB flats fell by 8 per cent to 6,039 cases in Q4.
Overall, there were some 26,000 subletting transactions in 2011, down 5 per cent from 2010.
HDB said it’ll offer more than 4,000 new flats for sale in March under the Build-To-Order scheme.
The flats will be located in Bedok, Bukit Batok, Bukit Panjang, Clementi, Geylang and Toa Payoh.
Source : Channel NewsAsia – 27 2012