The property market will take into account the recent cooling measures and adjust to the “new challenges”, said Mr Simon Cheong, the president of the Real Estate Developers’ Association of Singapore (REDAS).
“It is in our interest to see a graduated trend in value movements in order to realise a sustainable environment for real-estate development rather than face the volatility arising from mismatched market forces,” Mr Cheong said on Friday in a speech at Redas’ 51st anniversary dinner.
“What investors desire most is certainty, political stability and a stable policy framework; our market has all of these three attributes,” he added.
Among the measures announced on Aug 30, the Government raised the holding period for the imposition of seller’s stamp duty to three years from one year.
For property buyers who already have an outstanding mortgage at the time of the new purchase, the minimum cash payment will be raised to 10 per cent from 5 per cent and the loan-to-value limit will fall to 70 per cent from 80 per cent.
The Government is also addressing the issue from the supply side.
The Government Land Sales programme for the first half of next year will have 30 sites that can yield about 14,300 private homes.
This is higher than the 13,900 available in the GLS programme for the second half of this year.
Source : Today – 4 Dec 2010