Singapore’s home prices fell at a faster pace in October, dropping 1.2 per cent from the previous month as evidence builds that the government’s efforts to cool the property market are working.
The Singapore Residential Price Index fell to 159.1 points last month after declining a revised 0.9 per cent in September, according to the National University of Singapore‘s Institute of Real Estate Studies, which compiles it. The measure tracking prices in the central region decreased 1.4 per cent in October.
Record home prices amid low interest rates raised concerns of a housing bubble and prompted the city-state to introduce new taxes and higher minimum downpayments since 2009 to curb speculation in Asia’s second-most expensive housing market. Home sales have been falling in the past four months after the government imposed new rules in June governing how financial institutions grant property loans to individuals.
Singapore and Hong Kong, ranked as the world’s most expensive housing market, have introduced measures to cool property prices. Singapore has linked borrowers’ maximum debt levels to their incomes and raised stamp duties and capital gains taxes, while Hong Kong has increased minimum downpayments six times in less than three years and in February doubled stamp-duty taxes for all properties over HK$2 million (S$323,000).
Singapore’s home sales fell 19 per cent in October to 1,009 units from a month earlier, according to data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) released on Nov 15. From the previous year, sales dropped 48 per cent, the data showed.
Home prices in the island-state rose at the slowest pace in six quarters in the three months ended Sept 30, according to figures released by the authority on Oct 25.
Singapore’s private residential property price index rose 0.4 per cent to a record 216.2 points in the three months ended Sept 30, after climbing one per cent in the second quarter, URA data last month showed.
Source: Business Times –29 November 2013
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