There was a record number of mainland Chinese home buyers in the last quarter of 2010, according to data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA).
With more drastic cooling measures implemented by the Chinese government, analysts say more Chinese will put their money in Singapore property.
SINGAPORE: Mainland Chinese buyers are now the second largest group of foreigners who buy homes in Singapore, falling behind to Malaysian buyers – who have typically dominated foreign ownership of property here.
Chinese buyers accounted for 23 per cent of foreign buyers in the fourth quarter of 2010, up 3 percentage points from the previous quarter.
They have outpaced Indonesian buyers, who fell behind at 18 percent.
Overall, Chinese buyers accounted for 19 percent of all foreign buyers in 2010.
Analysts say investing in Singapore property for the long-term is no longer unique to Singaporeans, but have extended to the mainland Chinese as well.
Mr Ku Swee Yong, CEO and international property advisor, said, “there’s a very large pool of chinese buyers who need to buy properties in singapore for their own use – for schooling, for coming into singapore to work, for immigration purposes, all these are a natural consequence of the efforts singapore has put in to promote ourselves in china over the last decade or so”.
Some experts are concerned about the impact on the property market if foreign buyers make a quick exit; but others say the current level of foreign ownership is not alarming.
“Singaporean buyers still make up the majority of buyers – about 70 percent, so that’s still a very high proportion. So for the foreigners even if they were to pull out, it’s not going to cause a big drop in prices if the singapore economy is still doing well and the locals still continue to buy”, said Ms Chua Chor Hoon, head of Southeast Asia research at DTZ.
Still the proportion of Singaporeans buying homes is also falling, according to URA data; with Singaporean buyers falling to 72 per cent last year, as compared to 76 per cent in 2009.
Source : Channel NewsAsia – 4 Mar 2011