Spring Grove is the latest condominium jumping on the en bloc sale bandwagon. Almost every week, there is an announcement of a new privatized HUDC estate or old project putting up for sale. Recent candidates joining the collective sale craze include Braddell View, Pine Grove, Changi Garden, Amber Park, Jervois Gardens, Florence Regency and Normanton Park. Developers are … [Read more...]
What we can learn from cockroaches to survive the next crisis
Typhoon Hato lashed Southern China two weeks ago. Hong Kong and Macau were struck head-on with strong winds and heavy rain. A widely-shared youtube video of Macau showed thousands of cockroaches getting out of their underground hiding places and crawling one after the other over a sea wall. It was a well-coordinated effort to march to higher grounds to flee from possible … [Read more...]
Recovery? What recovery?
Property news from the media can be very confusing these days. Headlines of articles on a single day can be totally contradictory to each other. On Monday August 14, Business Times had an article “Analysts upbeat on property, tech after Q2's mixed earnings”. Flip the Straits Times on the same day and there’s a headline “More firms closing amid tough economy”. Such … [Read more...]
MAS makes commentators look foolish again
Last Thursday, Managing Director of Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) Ravi Menon mentioned at the annual report media conference that it is “not time yet to ease the cooling measures”, “they remain necessary” and “easing the measures now would send a wrong signal”. Sorry, cooling measures are to stay Menon cited two reasons for the decision: 1) Good pick-up of … [Read more...]
4 traits of millennial homebuyers and how they impact properties
Still remember my previous blog post “3 disruptive trends that will forever change the property industry”? There is a fourth trend on millennial homebuyers. Millennials (not the yellow color “minions” in the Despicable Me movie) are also known as Generation Y. They are referred to those who are born between 1982 and 2004 (or between 13 to 35 years old). Every … [Read more...]