Further home-price drop could signal the end of cooling measures
Singapore has been branded as the “worst-performing” among Southeast Asian property markets, thanks (or no thanks) to the government-led curbing measures to cool the domestic market, which hit record prices in 2013.
Some real estate analysts, however, think the massive price declines in Singapore’s residential segment – forecast at 8 percent in 2016, per consultancy firm JLL – could sway authorities to halt the cooling policies.
According to Bloomberg, home values dropped for a ninth quarter in Q4 2015, Singapore’s longest losing streak in 17 years.
The city-state’s property sector also reported its first year-on-year decline since 2008, with the 3.7 percent drop in prices in 2015.
Private home resale prices have also been sliding. Channel News Asia reported that the overall price drop in this segment was about 2.3 percent, per data from SRX Property, which commented that the declines “reflect the current languid market sentiment and the sustained impact of the cooling measures.”
The slowdown certainly impacted property agents as well, with the hardest-hit temporarily changing careers and becoming Uber drivers while they wait for the market activity to pick up.
More: Is Singapore property ready to roar again?
Due to the downward trajectory of home prices, however, more properties have become available for buyers who might have hesitated to purchase real estate before.
“People who were previously priced out of the market can afford to buy now,” Alan Cheong, senior director of research & consultancy at Savills Singapore, told the Strait Times.
In an exclusive interview today with Bloomberg TV, Steve Melhuish, CEO and co-founder of leading regional property portal PropertyGuru, said that while transaction values have dropped by about 70 percent, Singapore would remain attractive to investors, especially in the long-term.
And although the Singaporean market is expected to bottom out this year, experts believe that the government would not give up on the cooling measures just yet.
“The government has maintained that it is not yet time to ease the cooling measures and our sense is that it is more likely to be later rather than earlier in 2016,” Ong Teck Hui, national director of research & consultancy at JLL in Singapore
Singapore-based Asia-Pacific research director at Knight Frank, Nicholas Holt, agreed. “All the noises from the government are that cooling measures are here to stay. I’m sure that behind closed doors they are talking about possible tweaking of some of the cooling measures.”
Source : property-report.com
Read more…Why now might be a good time to buy residential property in Singapore
