Real Estate Investment Secret

https://www.srx.com.sg/condo/district/ang-mo-kio-bishan-thomson?page=4

The government recently announced that the seller’s stamp duty and holding period would be lowered for residential properties bought on and after March 11. The new SSD rates will be 12%, 8% and 4% of the property value for homes sold within the first, second and third year of purchase respectively. Previously, the SSD rates stood at 16%, 12%, 8% and 4% for homes sold within the first, second, third and fourth year of purchase. SSD was introduced to curb speculations. There may seem to be no compelling reason for the government to recalibrate any property cooling measures at this juncture, given that the market is showing signs of bottoming out in the absence of active intervention. However, prices of apartments and condominiums continued to trend down for the 13th consecutive quarter in 4Q2016, suggesting that the previous macro-prudential set of cooling measures could be too stringent. Firstly, going by the URA price index, prices now stand at 2010 levels. This puts the price inc...

When markets run amok, government policies are expected to provide stability. This was indeed the case when the policy measures first kicked in, starting from September 2009 and culminating in the implementation of the total debt service ratio (TDSR) framework on June 29, 2013. The market then started to respond to these measures and began the long process of detoxification. The slew of measures has altered the real estate investment landscape and effectively constrained overspending. Consequently, the private residential market is now behaving in ways that are different from the heydays of the past. Here, we look at some of those changes. The sequential imposition of the cooling measures has inadvertently created a live experiment on its impact on new-home sales in conjunction with housing prices. Over the past 14 quarters, with the measures in place, annual new-home sales volume has hovered between 7,300 and 7,900 units, with price changes in negative territory. Achieving a...

A condominium unit at The Marina Collection in Sentosa Cove was to be put up for auction a third time by Edmund Tie & Co ( ET&Co) on March 29. However, it was sold prior to the auction, at a price believed to be around $3 million. The unit was a mortgagee sale, and the recent buyer, a foreign investor. The latest transaction translates to a 42.8% discount to the previous owner’s purchase price of $5.24 million ($2,800 psf), based on a caveat lodged for the unit in December 2011. The 1,873 sq ft unit on the second level has a direct view of the marina and contains three bedrooms and a study. The unit is currently tenanted at a rental rate of about $6,000 a month. Last December, a similar-sized unit on the third level (above the one that just sold) of The Marina Collection fetched $3 million ($1,602 psf) as well. It shows that prices of condos at Sentosa Cove have finally bottomed. “These transactions demonstrate that at the current price levels, buyers are finding it att...

https://www.theedgeproperty.com.sg/property-news?cat=indepth&page=1 https://www.srx.com.sg/ask-home-prof/private-resale

According to CBRE’s 2017 Asia Pacific Occupier Survey, global economic uncertainty and a focus on cost savings are prompting MNCs to proactively adopt workplace strategies. About 50% of MNCs will invest more in their workplace strategy and space efficiency programmes, ranking that as their main priority for the coming year. Corporations across Asia- Pacific are making the realignment of workplace strategy a business priority. They are evaluating the longer-term dynamics of the workforce and thinking more holistically about the role of agile working environments in their business. As a result, corporations are coming up with workplace strategies and space efficiency initiatives to future-proof work environments, attract and retain personnel, and mitigate disruption. Space optimisation The increased focus on space optimisation is poised to accelerate a radical workplace change away from fixed desks to activity-based working. More than half of the survey respondents plan to ...

A week ago, Singapore permanent resident Ms Lew was just calculating the remaining lease on her 700 sq ft, three-room HDB flat in Marine Parade and wondering how much it could fetch in the resale market. “I’m just a couple of years from retirement,” she says. Lew’s flat, like the more than 7,000 in Marine Parade, was completed in 1975. According to HDB’s website, Marine Parade was the first housing estate to be built on reclaimed land. This means that the flats in Marine Parade have 57 years remaining on their 99-year leases. Singaporean Ms Aw, who bought her 1,128 sq ft, five-room HDB flat in Marine Parade 17 years ago, says she now feels “a little unsettled”. Even though her flat is already fully paid for, the 56-year-old says, “My retirement is locked in this flat. If I want to make money from it, I will have to sell it and downgrade to a smaller BTO [built-to-order] flat so I won’t be saddled with a big home loan”. The two HDB owners are representative of many others staying ...