Hong Kong monetary chief Norman Chan said more measures might be necessary to cool the city’s housing market as elevated household debt added to risks from property price gains over the past four years, Bloomberg news agency reported on Monday. Debt is “near historic high levels,” Mr Chan, the chief executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), told lawmakers, citing ratios of 58 to 59 per...
real-estate
National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan said the core principle behind the pricing of new HDB flats remains affordability. Replying to questions in Parliament on Tuesday, he said the prices of new HDB flats are set based on the typical household income of families, the market price of similar resale flats in the vicinity, and the flat size and location. Mr Khaw said HDB applies a substantial price...
Rental movements across Singapore’s office, retail, industrial and residential segments are expected to be moderate this year, according to a report by Colliers International. Compared to 2012, rents of Grade A buildings are forecast to decline by five percent in 2013, while capital values could rise by five percent. Rents of luxury non-landed private housing could fall by 10 percent, while capital...
Wing Tai Holdings on Monday reported second-quarter net profit surged from the corresponding period in the previous year, boosted by its property business. Net profit for the three months ended Dec 31 was up 159 per cent to S$88.7 million as revenue jumped 73 per cent to S$321.8 million, Wing Tai said. The stellar performance was due in large part to progressive sales in its projects such as Foresque...
Application rates for first-timers rose marginally in the latest Build-To-Order flats sales exercise, the first BTO offering this year. Applications close at midnight but overall as of 5pm, there were 2.2 first-timers applying for each new unit. This is higher than the 1.8 in the previous exercise in November last year. It is also the first time since March last year that the application rate for...
Singapore will get three new towns – Bidadari, Tampines North and Tengah – which are expected to provide 90,000 homes over the next few years, reported The Straits Times. The areas of Bukit Brown and Keppel could also be developed in the future, according to the Land Use Plan released by the Ministry of National Development (MND) last week. Tengah which is located in western Singapore is currently...
The future success of the government’s land use plans will depend on market timing and clarity on the details of development, said Alice Tan, Senior Manager for Research at Knight Frank Singapore. “To fulfil the optimisation of land use in the medium to long term, we expect the planners to be reviewing land usage in a comprehensive approach, from existing low intensity to higher intensity land...
China’s average home prices rose from year-ago levels in January for the second month in a row, signalling that the property market recovery is gaining momentum after last year’s slump, Dow Jones Newswires reported on Friday. Analysts said the uptick in prices was due to strong demand from buyers who had rushed into the market amid widespread expectations that housing prices would climb further this...
New measures unveiled by the Government on Jan 11 to cool the housing market have been described by many industry watchers as the most comprehensive and harshest ever. Hold on. Hasn’t this description been used to describe at least one other previous set of cooling measures? To put the most recent curbs into proper context, we are moving from “Harsh” to “Harsh+”. Following the announcement,...
Analysts say the comprehensive Land Use Plan released by the government on Thursday will present many opportunities for developers. It will also boost the property market in years to come. They add that home prices in some areas could also appreciate, though not any time soon. Housing estates like Woodlands, Sembawang, Seletar and Punggol may be far from the city today, but come 2030, these towns are...