Tag Archives: Interest-only Housing Loans

Ready to welcome the crowds again

Posted on 19 Sep 2009 | Comments Off on Ready to welcome the crowds again

Hungry Ghost Festival is over and buyers are set to return, say analysts

DESPITE Monday’s announcement by the Government to cool the hot property market, observers expect private property showrooms to continue to be packed with eager homebuyers and investors this weekend.

Some property agents whom Weekend Today spoke to said that enquiries over the past week have been brisk, with some asking about early bird discounts and some even booking units without viewing the showflat.

“Since this weekend is the first weekend after Hungry Ghost Festival, enquiries about a few developments have increased, my confirmed appointments for showroom-viewing this weekend alone is about eight to nine customers.

“During the Hungry Ghost Festival, I saw only about three to four customers during the weekends,” said property agent Melinda Koh.

Market watchers also said developers or marketing agents do not need to resort to any unusual gimmicks to draw visitors to showrooms.

“Gimmicks will only be used in a down market. For now, the volume of the market is still alright,” said ERA’s associate director of Asia-Pacific Eugene Lim. Continue reading →

Comments Off on Ready to welcome the crowds again

Posted in Property Market / Real Estate

Tagged , , , , , ,

Govt takes fizz out of nascent property bubble

Posted on 15 Sep 2009 | Comments Off on Govt takes fizz out of nascent property bubble

Cooling measures to curb speculation; move likely to hit sales, dampen prices

After two recent warnings that it was keeping a close eye on things heating up in the private housing sector, the government yesterday announced cooling measures to ‘temper the exuberance in the market and pre-empt any speculative bubble from forming’.

The Confirmed List land sales will be reintroduced from the first half of next year. The interest absorption scheme (IAS) that helped revive home sales earlier this year after the global financial crash has been scrapped with immediate effect.

While some of the measures had already been anticipated by major developers, property veterans were still a bit taken aback by the speed of the response. In particular, the demand-side measures – disallowing the IAS and the similar interest-only housing loans (IOL) with immediate effect – were expected only later. In addition, the property business has visibly quietened down at showflats over the past two weekends – indicating that buyer fatigue was setting in.

The Ministry of National Development (MND) said that ‘the government has introduced these measures now, because there are signs of increased speculative activity and private housing prices have also increased significantly since June 2009’.

MND added that a sample survey of recently launched projects showed that the take-up rate of the IAS was about 20-25 per cent.

Announcing the measures in Parliament yesterday, National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan warned that the government would continue to monitor the property market closely and would introduce additional measures if required. Continue reading →

Comments Off on Govt takes fizz out of nascent property bubble

Posted in Developers, Loan / Mortgage / Finance, Property Market / Real Estate, Property Price

Tagged , , , , , ,