How you view the property market now?

kenpachi82

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I feel the line between high-end hdb and low/mid end private condos are blurring. It is no longer strange to see a 4/5rm hdb unit going for >900k. On the other hand, condo prices are stagnant at best. (referring to resale units). New launches are still priced high as there is pent up demand over the years. And the buyers are singaporeans/PRs.

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Clazav

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Indeed, the sell-rent-buy type rarely works out in the end, coz very difficult to time the market.

Rental aside, also incurr significant costs on selling/buying/reno/furnishing...

Worst case tio ABSD and SSD some more.



They serve different market segments: Condo for facilities, HDB for spaces/savings.

Sell-rent-buy can work if you have two or more properties prior to the selling process. Then you don't have to rent from others. (but you lose an rental income when you sold one of your properties.)
 

Clazav

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My feeling is we're in an economic bubble that could pop.

And I think a lot of Singaporeans had bought into the idea of heavily borrowing to own more than one property.

If the bubble pops and retrenchment exercises begin, the ones who over extended themselves will be forced to do fire sales.

But I also think there are a lot of people with liquidity waiting on the sidelines for this to happen. So that may balance out the supply/demand ratio.

With tdsr around, ppl can't be heavily borrowing from bank unlike the time before tdsr is implemented.
 

kyteo79

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Simple answers ...

too many expert and senior comments. Let me share what i see ...

Take a look at the land sales and at how govt are throwing out land for bidding.
Look at how much bid between 2nd vs winner of bid. usually the 2nd or third are quite sharp of true reflecting of the value of land in sgp assuming building costs stays stagnant.

A simple fact is land cost are going up up up. whether is land used for EC or Condos or landed.

An example is Qingjian bidding tops vs local developers ... several pieces of land has been pegged at prices where the first 5 bidders are miles apart. So what does this means ? They are playing the market ??? Ec they won several of them and control the pricing really well instead of following the world economy.

What you see ? Everybody is still buying ... despite the high prices.

Wait ? Yes pls wait and see wait and see ...

What about regional countries property market ? Ask yourself and see yourself ..

have a flat in yishun to be rented and agent called on saturday citing the best client and proposal and rentals. despite having just doing up the reno 1 week ago, i told her to search for other profiles as not wanting my good reno to be damaged. Agent said it is a bad market and this is the best rentals i can get ...

Citing HDB rental reports is about a couple of hundred difference and with everything newly furnish, it cant be a couple below last done right ? i asked. got an answer which surprise me. for 100 dollars discount agent phone rang.
*laughs... a simple fact, cheap everybody wants.

simple facts, got holding power, you can say no to anybody.
so likely many will not even bothered with the market but to buy buy buy at lows ...
 

jouhyo

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anyone knows when the 2nd half land sales will be released?

Just released. Supply of land for private housing increased as demand rises
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/supply-of-land-for-private-housing-increased-as-demand-rises-8987368
 

Sinkie

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Those who owns property are bullish while those who do not own any are bearish
 

kyteo79

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Whether bull or bear end of the day it is basic needs ... over your head then you are safe. pay 6 digits today or 7 digit tomorrow is what you decide today.

Take a look at history class. Human, clans, tribes fought for lands ... Why ?

Even everything stays the same. Will your bank interest stays zero ? will IRAS close shop ? Will our minister drop their salaries ?

Trust it will tell everything ...

No need to explain further.

today market is soft. i dun trust experts. I trust my own datas...
 

hyman

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Those who owns property are bullish while those who do not own any are bearish

Those who haven't own anything yet can go buy.

Those who own something can wait for prices to drop and/or for cooling measures to unwind... :)
 

dnsfpl

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Those who owns property are bullish while those who do not own any are bearish

Those who owns multiple property are bullish while those who do not own any or waiting to buy another are bearish
 

TheAlphaLion

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Some are of the view that the next economic crisis is about due (after the last which was almost a decade ago), and the market will undergo major corrections by then.

As such, they will adopt wait and see approach and hope to buy low during the crash.

Last time during economic crisis in 2008, HDB prices rise and rise and rise until 2013 50% higher. If you tell me next economic crisis coming.... doesn't make sense but maybe time to buy :s22:
 

Savantrainmaker

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Actually I had been thinking about this question for a while, and the most recent development actually confirmed my hypothesis.

Ceteris paribus - other things equal - the SG government, as the biggest landlord in Singapore will want property and land prices to rise in the long term, to Temasek's and by proxy its advantage.

But in the short-term three factors had been holding it from doing so.

First, a recent SG Economic competitive report had pointed to two key factors that had made Singapore very uncompetitive internationally. One is expensive land and real estate prices; and two, low labour productivity. Both had its roots in LHL's administration's FT-policy.

Indeed from 2009-2013, the LHL's administration was very slow getting a pulse on and reining in the sky-rocketing property prices caused by increased demand when LHL artificially jacked up the foreign population by 1,000,000 over a short period without adequate infrastructure planning, flippers taking advantage of the housing shortage, against the background of easy and cheap housing loans with the US Federal Reserve flooding the money markets with cheap supply of monies.

LHL, a globalist at heart is insistent on pushing ahead with the FT-policy and since he had not lived a single day of his existence as a normal Singaporean, he cannot feel the pains of the man in the street and is not backing down on letting in more and more FTs into Singapore because he is deeply sold on the population ponzi, get-GDP-up-fast economic solution. Of course there are other ethic diversity consideration which is another essay on its own.

So instead of targeting the root-cause - FT-policy - of Singapore's uncompetitive problem, policy makers are forced to focus their attention on the two symptoms - high real estate prices as well as low labour productivity. To tackle low productivity, there's the various schemes such as PIC and the various WDA training schemes etc.

To tackle high real estate prices, they were somewhat behind the curve from 2010 to 2013, but had gotten their act together since. Now there here are three layers of stamp duty in Singapore to rein in demand, and thereby prices: the Buyer’s Stamp Duty (BSD), Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty (ABSD), and the Seller’s Stamp Duty (SSD)

SSD - Essentially this is to hit directly at the 'flippers'. Thus when sold within the first year after being bought the SSD will be 16% high; when sold in the timeframe of one to two years after the purchase 12% will be due; when sold between two and three years after the purchase the SSD would be 8% ; and lastly, when sold between three and four years after the initial purchase SSD will amount to 4% of the property value.

ABSD - At 15% flat, it is targeted at all the Foreigner buyers. Since Singapore's properties is still cheaper than regional property market like HK, ABSD is put in place as more of a psychological deterrent to foreign speculators. But if you are a national/permanent resident from the US, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Iceland, you DO NOT need to pay the ABSD.

BSD - a 3 percent ad valorem tax payable by the buyer. The recent hike to 4% for properties higher than $1 million is actually very indicative. Why not set the limit at $2 million or $3 million? The Government clearly still believe the mass-market condominiums are over-priced at the moment.

So after a huge fight, the LHL's administration had finally managed to suppressed the real estate prices to the benefit of Singapore's national competitiveness. So I don't think it will not let it appreciate too much too soon and let literally years of efforts go to waste.

Second key consideration is that real wages in Singapore had not grown much because of LHL's 'cheaper, better, faster' policy. So any upsurge of property prices without substantial wage growth would be akin to committing political suicide twice over.

Third, at the global macro level, the Fed is probably going to increase rates by 1-2% within the next 24 months. For a typical $1.2 million loan for a $1.5 million condo when i/r goes up by 2%, the extra monthly repayment would be an extra $2,000 per month. And against the backdrop of weakening rental yields. This also means that about 25% or 1/4 of SG property loans borrowed at tight margins will be at risk of defaulting.

This bubble was a result of LHL administration slow actions in preventing the marginal borrowers from entering the property market at its peak in the first place; and whilst MAS had been prepping solutions with the banks when the inevitable happens, the SG Government will not allow the problem to be made worse than it already is by allowing more marginal borrowers into the market with TDSR, or adjusting the ratio when necessary.

So what do we know so far?

The LHL's administration had allowed real estate prices to shoot up too much and too fast such that the country's global competitiveness had been badly hit. It cannot afford to drop the ball again in the next economic cycle.

The macro monetary environment is also not in favour of credit expansion. About 25% or 1/4 of SG property loans borrowed at tight margins will be at risk of defaulting when the Fed hike rates within the next 24 months.

With the tighter credit situation and the 'force/voluntary-selling' that comes along with it, there will be lesser domestic demand and increased supply of both public and private housing in the SG property markets over the next 24 months.

And all the would-be 'flippers' would also had been trapped by the stagnant prices since three years ago and couldn't 'flip' even if they wanted to; and their best hope now is to draw on their cash savings to service their monthly loans against the backdrop of lowered rental yield.

So, all factors point to the fact that property prices in Singapore is unlikely to go up in the SHORT-TERM.


Caveat Emptor: The one lever that the LHL's Administration could still use to increase property prices in Singapore in the very immediate term is the ABSD - FOREIGN DEMAND. Because of the relative valuation of regional property markets like HK, the SG property market is still attractive to foreign buyers if the ABSD is removed overnight. But it would be utterly irresponsible for the LHL's Administration to do so.


 

Mergui219067

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Are you expecting the sellers or the developers would offer you cheap when we are certain of the market ? :o

Looking back now you must be banging your head / chest / tummy & toes. :o

I have been monitoring the property market for the past few months.
Wanted to hoot a tiny private unit for investment. but the current markets doesn't seems have any clue.

The only thing i realised is
Good(cheap) price cannot find good unit
Good unit cannot find good(cheap) price

I am not asking for a super low price. but the market seems overvalue for those good unit.
 

Mergui219067

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Savantrainmaker:
Which kumgong govt in the world wouldn’t want their land / properties / wealth to go up in the long term ? :o

The govt only needs to moderate the rise & fall as they affect the affordability & the wealth effect .

 
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andyltw

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Heard a few points on both sides of the bullish and bearish camp.

Bullish
13b+ of en bloc sales makes many millionaires. These people will go on to buy multiple properties. Leverage boosts the equity they presently hold.
Many bidders for recently held GLS. For Sumang, Qingjian was second to CDL-TID tie up. I imagine Qingjian wants to be a long term player here so for future GLS, they are likely to bid strong. For every GLS, there is one winner and about 9 losers. These 9 losers are going to go elsewhere to hunt for land.

Bearish
Interest rate normalization (i.e. rising) This will hit investors (lower their asking price), developers (won't bid so high), present home owners (those who are highly leveraged may have to firesale).
En bloc sales will lead to supply glut in 2-3 years.
Trump trade war - possible but spill on effects to Singapore are questionable.

My 2cents.
 

Gruber

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I understand the people in this forum is either buying/selling their property and I would like check with all on your take of the property market now………

Lately, there are lot of news about enbloc sales and high land tender price, the market seems to be turning a corner after the down trend of the past years. Although I am sure the gov will not relax the cooling measures any time soon especially ABSD and TDSR but is this nascent enthusiasm sustainable to push the prices higher? This is improving sentiment is pushing the fence siting buyer to take the plunge. I have been in the market recently looking around and can sense the increased activities and buyer/seller enthusiasm.

However with the uncertain global economy and security situation plus the certain interest hike which will affect the market sentiment, will it better to hold and wait for awhile until a clearer picture emerge? I am looking for both own stay and investment.

What is the actual situation on the ground?

Thanks.

With new launches being snapped up fairly quickly it may be that the property market is on an upturn and those with money can consider entering the market now than later.
 
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