Tag Archives: TDSR

New measures won’t be expanded to non-property loans

The 60 percent cap on the Total Debt Servicing Ratio (TDSR) will not be expanded to include non-property loans anytime soon, said Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who is also Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

“We don’t intend to, any time soon, extend the TDSR to other types of loans, but it’s really for the banks to factor it into their own internal assessments,” said Mr Tharman on the sidelines of a community event in Jurong yesterday.

“Supervision is more useful when it comes to the broad range of loans, not just more and more rules.”

Implemented at the end of last month for all property loans, the new ruling takes into account the borrower’s total debt obligation including mortgages as well as car, student and personal loans.

The latest loan-to-ratio cap is expected to be a long term measure.

“There’s no hard data on this but our rough assessment is that five to ten percent (of borrowers) are at risk of having over-leveraged, bearing in mind that interest rates are going to rise, and you can’t say for sure what the economy will be like, what unemployment will be like, a few years down the road,” he added.

Source – PropertyGuru – 16 Jul 2013

New regulations lead to fewer choices for home buyers

The new housing loan rules introduced by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) will severely limit the choices among second-time buyers, according to a Citibank report.

Since the curbs took effect, buyers looking to purchase a second property can only afford a home that is 30 percent more affordable, which was not the case before, the report noted.

Fewer units would be available to these buyers, as they would have to limit their choices to homes where the loan falls within the 60 percent Total Debt Servicing Ratio (TDSR).

Citi noted that Singapore’s household debt has spiked due to mortgages, highlighting that “household debt relative to GDP has risen to about 77 percent, similar to levels recorded before the Asian financial crisis nearly two decades ago.”

Source – PropertyGuru – 11 Jul 2013