This has positioned paid to any hopes for the cooling measures to be rolled returned any time soon, amid expectancies that this year’s finances might have provided some reprieve to developers here.
Mr Wong, who is also Second Finance Minister, said in a Bloomberg Television interview yesterday that the curbs “have helped to obtain a tender touchdown inside the property market”.
“if you study the marketplace today, demand stays very resilient,” he introduced.
Private residential costs in Singapore fell 3 percent previous year.
But home sales topped those in 2015 as a third straight year of price declines stoked pent-up demand from home buyers.
Some of the curbs have been in place since 2009, which include capping debt repayments at 60 per cent of a borrower’s income, as well as the Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty.
But the Government’s move to stand pat on the curbs came as no surprise to most in the industry.
Mr Tay Hong Beng, head of real estate at KPMG in Singapore, said the Government may be worried that “the prevailing economic conditions with overall lower interest rates and relative affordability of the residential properties may create an unmanageable spike in demand from both foreign and local investors”.
JLL national director for research and consultancy Ong Teck Hui believes it is still too early to lift curbs.
He referred to that this year budget includes larger central Provident Fund housing grants for HDB resale flat, that’s in all likelihood to maintain the growth in resale volume. Resale volume rose 7.8 per cent last year, compared with 2015
which means that the resale charge index, which has remained flat since the third quarter of 2015, will “certainly stabilise or perhaps rise slightly with increased demand and higher resale volume”, said Mr Ong.
A healthy Housing Board resale market with stable prices may want to inspire those aspiring to upgrade to private homes and lift the demand for them, he delivered.
Mr Lim Ming Yan, president and chief executive of CapitaLand, expects the curbs to stay in position for at least another year.
“We see quantity selecting up, and the price declines have slowed,” he informed Bloomberg earlier this month, noting that there is no compelling purpose for the government to lift the curbs.”
“We see this trend continuing for 2017.”
International Property Advisor key executive officer Ku Swee Yong told The Straits Times: “The government might be reluctant to pull lower back on the curbs because there continue to be the risks that doing so will overheat the marketplace once more.”
Note: The Ministry of Finance, where Mr Wong is the Second Finance Minister, has clarified that Mr Wong had in fact said that the factors for the resilient demand in the market will stay for a while
Source: http://www.straitstimes.com/business/property/property-curbs-to-stay-for-some-time
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