Property market too hot to stop?

By Romesh Navaratnarajah: Singapore's property market is booming despite a series of negative factors, including global economic uncertainties, a subdued local economy and looming supply of new homes. Even after the implementation of various property curbs, the market has been surprisingly resilient in terms of prices and demand, said a Savills report.

"Sharply rising land costs, strong developer balance sheets and low interest rates should all conspire to make 2013 another halcyon year for the industry," said Alan Cheong, Research Head at Savills.

In the past ten months alone, 19,792 new homes were sold breaking the previous record of 16,292 deals in 2010 by a sizeable margin of 21 percent, or 3,500 new homes.

Despite the property curbs, buyers snapped up 3,493 new executive condominiums (ECs) between January and October 2012. There is a good chance that it could exceed combined sales in 2010 and 2011 (3,935) as three more EC projects – The Topiary, Forestville and CityLife@Tampines – will be launched before the end of this year.

While purchases from foreign buyers were dampened by the additional buyer's stamp duty (ABSD), acquisitions by non-permanent residents rose to 511 units in Q3 2012 from 360 in Q1.

Moving forward, prices of mass market non-landed homes are expected to rise between 10 and 15 percent while luxury home prices may grow by three to five percent. Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor of PropertyGuru, wrote this story. To contact him about this or other stories email romesh@allproperty.com.sg Related Stories:Asian property markets show signs of weakness

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