Tag Archives: Property Bubble

Asian banks move to avoid property bubble

Central banks and regulators across Asia are moving to prevent property price rises spiraling out of control by due to growing fears of property bubbles forming.

The Singapore property and South Korea property sectors have already been affected by tighter borrowing rules over the past month, while media reports suggest that the India property market is set to follow suit. China and Hong Kong have also warned banks to avoid reckless lending to homebuyers.

“This is a positive, albeit tentative, sign that Asia has learnt from the experience of the west,” said Rob Subbaraman, chief Asia economist at Nomura. “It is prudent to lean against the formation of asset price bubbles.”

Property values in several countries in Asian, especially Hong Kong and Singapore, have appreciated dramatically in recent months, due to greater residential demand on the back of record low interest rates.

One of the greatest property price rises in Asia has been recorded in Singapore, where the average price of a home rose by 16% in the third quarter of this year compared to the preceding quarter. The Singapore government has now moved to pre-empt any speculative bubble from forming by abolishing two bank lending schemes that had allowed buyers to defer mortgage payments on uncompleted developments.

Source : homesoverseas – 7 Oct 2009

The next property bubble will be in Asia

Low interest rates and easy money are in danger of creating a new property bubble – in Asia.

Prices plunged in 2008. But markets are recovering surprisingly quickly. Private home prices in Singapore rose by 15.9% in the third quarter. Hong Kong housing has almost retraced all of last year’s 20-30% slump. In India, DLF, the country’s largest developer, claims it took just two hours to sell out a new 1,250-apartment development, even although prices were raised by 30%.

Before the bust, Asia didn’t see the manic levels of property investing that the US or Britain did. It’s a bit misleading to talk of Asian residential property as a single market, but broadly speaking, prices at the peak weren’t in bubble territory. Sure, there was speculation in some parts of most markets. But the crash didn’t leave huge sections of the population in negative equity. The worst hurt by the fall were developers in countries such as China and India, who built too much too quickly at too high a price. Continue reading