Market Report | Lush Dream Home

Prices inch up as home sales hit new highs

Posted on 18 Aug 2009 | Comments Off

Even as news of the 52 per cent month-on-month jump in developer home sales to a stunning 2,767 units in July begins to sink in, analysts are revising their predictions for the full year.

The 1,825 units sold in June already constituted a record but that number was surpassed effortlessly last month as buyers, eager not to miss the boat, rushed in and developers rolled out tempting new offerings. They launched 2,878 private homes in July, up 75.8 per cent from the June figure. For a year that started gloomily, 2009 may shatter private home sales records.

From Jan 1 to July 31 this year, developers sold 10,017 private homes. The previous full-year record of 14,811 units set in 2007 is likely to be overtaken with some market watchers forecasting sales of up to 16,000 units for the full year 2009.

But it will be a toss-up between developers wanting stronger price appreciation and booking more sales, some property pundits say. Evidence of Continue reading →

Have we bounced off the bottom of the property cycle?

Posted on 17 Aug 2009 | Comments Off

IT was barely a year ago that property prices were plummeting.

Since then, the world’s central banks have flooded the markets with an unprecedented liquidity tsunami that has lifted prices of assets like stocks and property. Liquidity comes in many forms, the most evident and tangible is lower interest rates, which immediately lower mortgage costs and allow potential borrowers to borrow more with the same level of disposable income.

It also reduces the returns on deposits which make it more attractive for depositors to redeploy their funds into higher yielding and more speculative assets like shares and property. Other forms of less tangible liquidity measures involve providing cheap funding for banks and printing money.

In China, the liquidity came in the form of generous lending by state-owned banks which boosted lending in the first half of 2009 by 7.37 Continue reading →