Home owners will only have to wait three years before selling their properties to avoid paying seller’s stamp duties (SSD), down from four years currently, under several adjustments made to property cooling measures. With effect from Saturday (Mar 11), those who sell their properties within three years will also pay less in SSD, according to a joint press release by the Ministry of Finance, Ministry...

Property developers are leasing more space to co-working space operators, even as demand rises from businesses in the new economy looking for flexible work areas. Currently, there are 53 co-working space locations in Singapore, almost one-third of which are in the Central Business District (CBD) – up from about one-fifth of the overall 40 co-working offices a year ago, according to real estate company...

The Chinatown Street Market will finally get its makeover from May 15, announced the Chinatown Business Association on Friday (Mar 10). Work is expected to take more than a year and finish by the end of 2018. The refurbishment work will take place in phases to minimise disruption, especially during Chinese New Year and the Mid-Autumn Festival, to ensure that most of the market remains open, said the...

From 12th of March, some stretches of Upper Aljunied Road will be permanently closed to traffic as part of plans to transform it into a heritage walk, the Housing and Development Board (HDB) said on Friday. The existing road will be turned into the Bidadari Heritage Walk to recount the history and stories of the estate’s heritage, including prominent personalities of the past, HDB said. The 700m...

In the first transaction of an entire Singapore office building this year, DBS Group announced on Friday evening that it is selling PwC Building at 8 Cross Street to an indirect subsidiary of Manulife Financial Corp. The deal values the 28-storey office block at S$747 million, which works out to S$2,100 per square foot based on its net lettable area of 355,704 sq ft. The property is on a site with a...

HDB resale prices fell 0.3 per cent in February compared with January. Resale prices of HDB four-room, five-room and executive flats fell 0.2 per cent, 0.5 per cent and 1.7 per cent respectively, while those of three-room flats rose 0.2 per cent. This was according to the SRX Property Price Index for HDB Resale. Year-on-year, prices have decreased by 0.6 per cent from February 2016, and 11.5 per...

THE government is planning to make legislative changes to subject "significant owners of residential-property-holding entities" to stamp duties when they transfer equity interest in such entities, in the same way they would be subjected to stamp duties if they were to buy or sell the properties directly. This planned move is perceived by some industry players as plugging an existing regulatory...

THE government is introducing greater flexibility in land use at the district level starting with Punggol North, which is designated as Singapore's first "Enterprise District" where new planning concepts will be tested out. JTC, the appointed master developer for Punggol North, will have flexibility to develop the district based on land use and gross plot ratio guidelines at the district level. Plans...

A PAIR of freehold shophouses along Temple Street in the Chinatown area are changing hands for S$18.5 million. The price works out to around S$2,125 per square foot based on the estimated floor area of 8,700 sq ft. Standing on 2,658 sq ft of land, the shophouses span three storeys and an attic. They are currently leased to Lau Choy Seng, which sells kitchen equipment and cooking ware on the ground...

MORE help to first-timer homebuyers is underway, including shorter waiting time for build-to-order (BTO) flats in non-mature estates and quicker access to balance flats, Minister for National Development Lawrence Wong said. The Housing & Development Board (HDB) also aims to - by leveraging on technology - shorten and streamline the resale transaction process. The current process takes about 16 weeks to...