On September 29 (Thursday) evening, the government announced new property cooling measures again. The new rules aimed to moderate demand and ensure prudent borrowing amid rising interest rates. They were also meant to address the public concern of rising home prices and to improve housing affordability. While industry stakeholders and homebuyers were caught by surprise, some … [Read more...]
Buying homes under inflation? What will happen next
In July, I wrote the blog post “Cash is king now”. Two months later, the trends covered in the post have advanced faster than anyone can predict. Everywhere we hear people saying, “Inflation makes everything expensive. I need more money!” Inflation stress far more contagious than Covid-19 As of this writing, Singapore has close to 2,500 daily new cases. However, the … [Read more...]
4 reasons behind the loss of appetite for private homes
Last Monday (August 29), there was an article in The Straits Times titled “Drop in appetite for private homes among some HDB owners”. It said HDB upgraders’ love affair with private properties has cooled in the first half of this year. According to URA’s data, buyers with HDB addresses only bought 3,649 new and resale non-landed private homes. The figure was down 26.2 … [Read more...]
How rate hikes hit developers and homebuyers
It’s the season for rate hikes. This Wednesday (July 27) the Federal Reserve raised another 0.75 basis point for second consecutive month. It vowed to go for more rate hikes to fight the battle against inflation. Taking the hint from the Fed, Singapore banks are likely to follow suit to raise rates like the previous round. After all, this was how the three local banks … [Read more...]
Cash is king now
We all heard of the saying “cash is king”. It is especially true at this point of time. To cope with rising inflation, the Monetary Authority of Singapore has gone ahead with three rounds of monetary tightening. Each round resulted in further reduction of money supply. Suddenly, cash becomes precious. Everywhere people are looking for cash now. The old trick of money … [Read more...]