Home buyers in Singapore are taking advantage of mortgage rates that are at an all-time low despite record-high housing prices, said a Bloomberg report.
For instance, Shivram Anantharaman, a private banker at ICICI Bank Ltd, used to pay a monthly rent of S$2,650 until March. Now, he’s paying just S$2,610 per month for the mortgage of the three-bedroom condo he bought.
“The clincher in Singapore is that monthly installments toward repayment of your loan are lower than what you would pay in rent,” said Anantharaman, who took out a S$1.04 million loan for his S$1.3 million property.
“It’s one of the few countries in the world where that is possible,” because of low interest rates, stated Anantharaman.
Housing affordability has climbed to its highest level in a decade due to flexible payment options offered to buyers and historically low interest rates, according to Jefferies Group Inc.
Maybank Kim Eng said average mortgage rates are 70 basis points above the Singapore Interbank Offered Rate (Sibor).
Data compiled by Bloomberg shows that the three-month Sibor is less than 0.4 percent compared to its peak of 3.56 percent in 2006.
The interest rate of Anantharaman’s 40-year mortgage is 55 basis points over Sibor, which translates to a home loan rate of less than one percent.
Sanjay Sain, an analyst at Credit Suisse Group AG, said Singapore’s mortgage rates are the lowest in the region, followed by Hong Kong. Meanwhile, Barclays Plc. noted that the average mortgage rate in Hong Kong is around 2.15 percent while China stands at 7.43 percent.
Source : PropertyGuru – 2012 Jun 27
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