Singapore URA launches first hospital site in 30 years

Singapore URA launches first hospital site in 30 years

By ARTHUR SIM

THE Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) yesterday launched a hospital site at Novena Terrace/Irrawaddy Road for sale by public tender. URA said that the last hospital site launched was at Mount Elizabeth in 1976.
URA said that it worked with the Ministry of Health to identify the new site. The news comes after Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan said in December that four possible sites for hospital development had been identified. He said three of the sites were near existing public hospitals and a fourth was in the north.
The 1.7 ha Novena Terrace/Irrawaddy Road site, near Novena MRT Station, has a maximum permissible gross floor area (GFA) of about 72,350 sq m. At least 35 per cent of the GFA is to be set aside for hospital in-patient wards.

A maximum of 5 per cent of the total GFA may be for retail uses such as gift shops and food and beverage outlets.

Knight Frank director (research and consultancy) Nicholas Mak said that hospital sites are a ’specialised play’, and he does not expect more than five bids. Knight Frank estimates that the winning bid could be in the region of $600 million to $670 million. This works out to be about $770 to $860 per square foot per plot ratio (psf ppr).

‘I expect that the future development could be a combination of hospital as well as strata-titled medical suites that could be put up for sale,’ Mr Mak said.

The URA said Singapore has experienced ‘exponential growth’ in international patient numbers over the last few years, with more than 410,000 visitors in 2006.

‘Growing at a rate of 20 per cent per annum, Singapore expects to receive about one million international healthcare visitors by 2012,’ the URA said.

Healthcare sites do appear to be in demand. In September, a consortium called Singapore HealthPartners put in the highest bid of $265.3 million, or $431 psf ppr, for a hospital-cum-hotel site in Race Course Road. Also in the market for hospital sites could be healthcare real estate investment trusts like Parkway Life Reit and First Real Estate Investment Trust. According to its website, URA has fielded questions on whether a trust can be considered a developer for the site.

Source : Business Times - 30 Oct 2007

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Five Singapore properties put up for en bloc sale

Five Singapore properties put up for en bloc sale

By KALPANA RASHIWALA
TENDERS for collective sales continue to be launched. The latest offerings include Dunearn Gardens near the Newton/ Scotts roads area, The Village in Pasir Panjang, and Riviera Point along River Valley Road.

Dunearn Gardens: Guide price for the 95,443 sq ft freehold site is $578.5m or $2,288 psf per plot ratio
CB Richard Ellis, which is marketing Dunearn Gardens, says the guide price for the 95,443 sq ft freehold site, is $578.5 million, which translates to about $2,288 per square foot per plot ratio, inclusive of an estimated $32.9 million development charge (DC). A new condo on the site would break even at about $2,900 to $3,000 psf, market watchers say.

The site is zoned for residential use with a 2.8 plot ratio (ratio of maximum potential gross floor area to land area). The maximum height allowed for the site is about 33 storeys. The plot can be redeveloped into a new condo with about 134 units averaging 2,000 sq ft each.

Credo Real Estate, the marketing agent for The Village, expects the freehold 102,642 sq ft site to fetch $75 million to $80 million. This reflects a unit land price of $646 to $680 psf per plot ratio, including an estimated DC of $17.75 million. Credo pointed to the possibility of the developer buying up to 20,000 sq ft of adjoining state land parcels, thus potentially enhancing the land size to 122,642 sq ft. In such a scenario, the developer’s unit land price would be lowered to $578 to $607 psf ppr - based on the $75 million-$80 million price tag set by The Village’s owners.

The site is zoned for residential use with a 1.4 plot ratio and five-storey maximum height.

Newman & Goh is marketing a few small sites. One of them is Riviera Point, a 14,580 sq ft plot at River Valley Road with a 2.8 plot ratio and 36-storey maximum height. Its owners are asking for $73.5 million, which works out to $1,800 psf ppr. No DC is payable.

Off Thomson Road, the property agent is marketing View Point and the nextdoor Shiba Apartments with asking prices of $20.5 million and $16.9 million respectively. These work out to around $792 psf ppr including DC.
Source : Business Times - 30 Oct 2007

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Restoring a genuine Singapore property market

Restoring a genuine Singapore property market

By CHOW PENN NEE
PROPERTY stocks were sent reeling yesterday following the government’s announcement to discourage speculative buying in the real estate market. In contrast, bank stocks rose. The divergence in stock performance between the two market sectors comes down to this: what is bad news for speculators may prove to be good news for banks.
The scrapping of the scheme which allows homebuyers to delay payments on new property may turn out to be a positive for the financial institutions giving out housing loans, as the measure weeds out punters from genuine buyers. The deferred payment scheme introduced 10 years ago allowed buyers to make as little as a 10 per cent downpayment, and pay the rest upon completion - sometimes after a time lag of three years. This encouraged many to enter the property market. Speculators did not even take the trouble to get a loan - merely coming up with the downpayment, and selling before completion of the property.

In the last few quarters, when the market turned red hot, some observers were surprised by what appeared to be muted home loans growth. The reason was that the deferred payment scheme, which discourages the early draw-down on loans (or even taking up a loan in the first place), had diluted the impact of the booming market on housing loans. Indeed, it was common to hear, at the results briefings of the local banks, the deferred payment scheme put forward as one of the main factors for the slower-than-expected pace of home loans growth.

With deferred payment now no longer an option, more buyers will be driven to take up home loans. And loans will be drawn down progressively, with borrowers paying a certain percentage of the purchase price at various stages of completion of the property. This should be positive for the loan books of the banks.

Take DBS Bank, for one. Singapore’s biggest bank had felt the ‘lag’ impact of the deferred payment scheme - it said a few months ago that it was expecting a sharper spike in home loans only in future quarters, due to investors taking out loans to pay for homes purchased using deferred payment schemes. With the scheme gone now, the bank told BT that the impact of the latest measure would be positive on its books - since, without the option of the deferred payment scheme, buyers have to seek financing and draw down the loans, if they don’t want to use a lot of their own cash.

The removal of the deferred payment scheme is not just positive on the loan books. For some time now, there has been growing concern that the scheme shifted the banks’ risk exposure from households to corporates. With buyers paying nothing in the early stages of a project with deferred payment, developers had to borrow more from the banks - or raise funds in the debt market - to finance their projects. This increased the banks’ exposure to property developers, and there is past evidence to suggest that corporates are more likely to default, should the market turn bad, than households.

According to MAS data, as at end-June, housing and bridging loans as well as loans to the building and construction sector made up nearly half of the more than $200 billion loan portfolio of commercial banks here. This has been a steady increase from the 33 per cent from about a decade ago, around the height of the last property boom. In absolute terms, housing and bridging loans were worth some $64 billion in June, compared with about $63 billion six months ago. As the Monetary Authority of Singapore had also previously said, the use of the deferred payment scheme by property developers introduces additional risks to the developers (and to the banks which finance these developers) because property purchasers under this scheme are not subject to credit checks by developers.

‘This is unlike property purchasers who apply for housing loans and are subject to credit assessment by banks. MAS expects banks to exercise prudence in their financing to the property developers and be fully cognisant of the additional risks from the use of deferred payment schemes,’ MAS had said then. The removal of the scheme will restore some balance, and the banks should have their exposure to households raised while lessening their exposure to developers.

The government’s removal of the deferred payment scheme - and expectations of further cooling measures - could keep the property market cautious in the near term. Buyers may adopt a wait-and-see approach, and new projects could see a slower take-up rate. That could crimp home loans growth in the short term. But in the longer term, doing away with deferred payment will put home financing on a far healthier plane. ‘Flippers’ who buy property to resell quickly to make a fast buck will be deterred, the speculative froth will be taken out of the market, and pricing will come to levels more in line with economic fundamentals. For banks, this means genuine homebuyers and investors as customers - and that cannot be a bad thing.

Source : Business Times - 30 Oct 2007

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Strong earnings results for third quarter so far-Singapore

Strong earnings results for third quarter so far-Singapore

Profits total $2.18b, up 46.7%, for 28 firms with year-ago comparison
By OH BOON PING

SINGAPORE-LISTED companies continued to put up a strong third-quarter performance, chalking up higher profits than a year ago.

As of yesterday, a total of 34 companies have released their financial results for the three months ended Sept 30, 2007, with combined net profits of $2.24 billion.

Of the 34 companies, 32 of them, or 94 per cent, were in the black.

Among these profitable companies, 20 reported higher net earnings than a year ago, while six reported lower net income.

For the 28 companies that have a year-ago comparison, their net profits totalled $2.18 billion, 46.7 per cent higher than the corresponding period last year.

On a nine-month basis, the 34 firms reported total net income of $6.99 billion, while the 28 firms with a year-ago comparison chalked up earnings of $6.84 billion - up 60.3 per cent year-on-year.

Leading the pack in terms of Q3 earnings is banking group DBS, which reported a net profit of $610 million - up from $552 million a year earlier. Its turnover rose 16.4 per cent to $1.54 billion from $1.32 billion.

DBS’s Q3 numbers came as the three Singapore-listed banking groups - including UOB and OCBC - were closely watched for the impact of recent financial market turmoil on their bottom lines.

Banking analysts had told BT earlier that they generally expected ‘decent’ Q3 earnings growth, but warned that the rosy forecasts could be thrown off if the banks made large provisions against earnings for any losses from their exposure to collateralised debt obligations or CDOs.

UOB is releasing its results today, while OCBC is scheduled to release its numbers on Nov 6.

At the sectoral level, property plays were perhaps the best-performing with most reporting higher earnings and turnover as well as significant growth. For example, CapitaLand more than doubled its Q3 net profit to $563.93 million, while nine-month net earnings more than trebled to $2 billion.

Its Q3 revenue rose 24.6 per cent to $895.77 million, while nine-month turnover was up at $2.47 billion - from $2.15 billion.

Likewise, Keppel Land more than doubled its Q3 net profit to $81.84 million, while turnover jumped 49.4 per cent to $381.97 million. Its nine-month net earnings surged 74.1 per cent to $207.31 million.

Real estate investment trusts (Reits) such as CapitaMall Trust, Mapletree Logistics Trust and K-Reit also did well, having reported both higher Q3 turnover and profits.

Besides the companies that have already reported their quarterly earnings, there are another 196 that are expected to release their Q3 numbers in the coming weeks, even though the number of firms with a December financial year-end stands at 495.

Companies with a market capitalisation of $75 million and below - in view of the higher relative costs for smaller firms - are exempted from reporting quarterly results. All listed companies, however, have to report their first-half and full-year results.

Source : Business Times - 30 Oct 2007

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Singapore Property shares take a beating

Singapore Property shares take a beating
Developers with inventory in prime districts may face pricing pressure
By KALPANA RASHIWALA
PROPERTY analysts were still busy yesterday predicting how the market will be affected by the end of the deferred payment scheme (DPS) as property shares received their expected drubbing when trading opened.

Mr Gee : Pricing power is shifting very firmly away from developers
A report by OCBC Investment Research forecast tough times for the residential sector - but not everyone was gloomy.

The OCBC researchers said: ‘The significance of the current government move is that it is targeting at the demand side of the equation while previous measures (since end-2006) were mainly supply side . . . Demand-side measures historically tend to have severe repercussions on demand and hence pricing.

‘We thus see the latest action (and subsequent action if speculation continues) to be negative on the residential sector.’

A seasoned property consultant said: ‘The withdrawal of DPS will affect speculators, who have been focusing mainly on high-end homes but who have also filtered into mid-market projects as seen in One North Residences and The Rochester. However, even genuine home buyers and investors whose budgets are stretched by the rapid price appreciation will be affected. Sales volumes will come off.’

CIMB-GK Research said: ‘We believe developers with inventory in the prime districts could face pricing pressure as punters retreat. Developers are also likely to bear the brunt of greater financial prudence exercised by genuine home buyers as they no longer have the luxury of time to build up funds for repayment.’

The government’s announcement on Friday of the immediate withdrawal of the DPS means an end to the system in which private property buyers could buy units in uncompleted developments with just a 10 or 20 per cent downpayment, with the payment for the rest of the purchase price in some cases postponed until the completion of the project.

CIMB said in its research note yesterday: ‘We believe this move is aimed at discouraging speculative activity and is also a preventive measure to keep mass-market price escalations in check.’

There will be no new DPS developments available, although developers which have already obtained approval to offer the scheme for a project may continue to do so.

One development that seemed to be benefiting over the weekend from its approval for DPS was United Industrial Corporation’s (UIC) Park Natura, a five-storey freehold condo in the Toh Tuck area near the Bukit Batok Nature Reserve. The condo has an average price of about $1,000 per square foot. UIC is said to have sold more than 60 units over the weekend in the project, which has 192 units in total.

The developer is offering a partial deferred payment scheme where buyers pay an initial 10 per cent, with progress payments needed only after one year.

On the stock market yesterday morning, the Singapore Properties Equity Index fell as much as 2.1 per cent from Friday’s close to 1,545.16 points. It later recovered to end at 1,557.52 points - just 1.3 per cent lower than Friday’s finish.

City Developments lost 50 cents to close at $15.80, followed by SC Global Developments which eased 35 cents to finish at $5.50. Singapore Land lost 25 cents, closing at $9.85.

‘Purer developers with sizeable residential inventories are likely to be the most affected,’ CIMB said.

‘Stocks under our coverage with revalued net asset values that are particularly sensitive to asset price changes include Allgreen, Bukit Sembawang, City Developments, Ho Bee and UOL. We estimate that every 10 per cent change in residential prices will result in 5-10 per cent changes in stock valuations for these companies.

‘The sector is currently under review . . . we expect to lower our residential selling price assumptions by 10-15 per cent in the upcoming results season in view of mounting uncertainties in the property market,’ CIMB said.

Citigroup said that the DPS withdrawal has ‘probably removed the champagne from the party’ since property prices have been fuelled to some extent by the availability of deferred payments, which account for more than 70 per cent for some projects.

‘Sentiment will likely weaken in the short term, particularly in the luxury segment. Longer term, fundamentals, including strong economic growth, immigration and low interest rates will likely be supportive of property prices,’ the report said.

But other analysts, like JP Morgan’s Chris Gee, said that he was recommending investors to be underweight on the sector even before Friday’s announcement.

‘Pricing power is shifting very firmly away from developers because they now have more products to sell,’ he said. ‘But they’re not just competing among themselves for buyers but also with specu-vestors who’ve bought properties since 2005 and who can offer buyers properties that will be physically completed sooner than those that will be launched by developers in the near future.’
Source : Business Times - 30 Oct 2007

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S’pore Horizon Towers sale: Battle resumes today at strata board hearing

S’pore Horizon Towers sale: Battle resumes today at strata board hearing

Two-week session to give final word on en bloc sale application
By MICHELLE QUAH
(SINGAPORE) The Horizon Towers saga goes back on the boil today when the majority owners’ application for a collective sale is again heard by the Strata Titles Board (STB).
The hearing, scheduled for two weeks, will be the final word on whether the en bloc sale goes through - and on a battle of wills between the project’s majority and minority owners.

The minority owners will take this final opportunity to scuttle what they say is a deal done ‘in bad faith’.

Their lawyers have repeatedly said that they have plenty of objections to the sale that they have not yet aired. It is believed that these range from alleged non-compliance with the law governing en bloc sales to the sale being prejudicial to the minority owners.

‘We have quite a few arrows we still haven’t shot,’ lawyer SK Phang, who represents a minority owners, has said.

The minority owners’ objections have stalled the en bloc sale. On Aug 3, the STB dismissed the majority owners’ application on the grounds that it was incomplete and the accompanying statutory declaration false, because it was missing three signature pages. This was before the STB had heard the merits of the case.

The STB’s decision was then overruled by the High Court, which said this month that the missing pages did not constitute a substantial omission that prejudiced the minority owners. The court sent the application back to the STB.

Today’s STB hearing picks up where the previous hearing left off in August. Over the next fortnight, the parties will call witnesses and present evidence to support their opposing claims on whether the collective sale application complies in form and substance with the law and whether the sale was conducted in good faith.

But this time majority owners are unlikely to collaborate with minority owners. At the previous STB hearing, majority and minority owners were seen hugging one another and celebrating the board’s decision to dismiss the application.

Several majority owners - after signing the deal to sell Horizon Towers for $500 million in February - regretted their decision when neighbouring developments began fetching much higher prices. They circulated anonymous flyers to other majority owners, asking them to rescind the deal.

The move transformed what would have been a run-of-the-mill en bloc sale into the drawn-out battle it has become.

But this time around, it will be in the majority owners’ interests to push the collective sale through. The buyers - Hotel Properties and its partners - have slapped a $1 billion lawsuit on them.

Angered by some majority owners’ attempts to sink the sale, HPL and its partners filed a suit in the High Court claiming damages of up to $1 billion, saying that the sellers had failed to honour their part of the bargain.

The suit has been stayed until the STB hearing is concluded. But HPL and its partners have indicated that they could revive the proceedings if the collective sale falls through.

HPL and its partners have been excluded from the STB hearing, after their application to intervene was dismissed recently.
Source : Business Times - 30 Oct 2007

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Singapore PM sees growth at higher end of 7-8% forecast

Singapore PM sees growth at higher end of 7-8% forecast

Asia’s fundamentals are strong, and S’pore’s links with China, India will offset US slowdown
By CHUANG PECK MING
(SINGAPORE) Singapore’s economy is likely to grow at ‘the higher end’ of the government’s forecast of 7-8 per cent this year, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in a labour movement speech yesterday.

Mr Lee: More major policies and initiatives will be necessary from time to time to enable Singapore to stay ahead and remain competitive
Painting an upbeat picture of the economy despite the threat of a recession in the United States, as the sub-prime mortgage crisis leads to an overdue correction in the stock markets, he said Singapore remains in a strong position.

‘The economy is doing well,’ Mr Lee said at the National Delegates Conference of the National Trades Union Congress. ‘I think we can achieve the higher end of the (forecast) range.’
While a recession may hit the US - and the ripple will spread to Singapore - the fundamentals for Asia remain robust, and China and India continue to grow rapidly, he said. ‘Our links with them will help us to weather a US slowdown.’

Mr Lee said the government has also moved to provide more office space in the next two or three years and cool the hot property market, which could dampen investment.

‘We will continue to monitor trends closely and take further action if necessary,’ he said. ‘We will make sure that the property market stays in balance over the long term.’

Mr Lee’s remarks came barely three weeks after the government published preliminary figures showing that the economy expanded by a blistering 9.4 per cent in the third quarter, trumping analysts’ forecasts and beating numbers racked up in the previous three months.

The higher-than-expected growth got economists in the private sector revising their full-year forecasts, with some going as high as 8.7 per cent.

With an average 8.2 per cent already secured for the first three quarters, the official forecast is very much in the bag.

Mr Lee yesterday noted that the hot economy is churning out a record number of jobs, some 114,000 in the first half of the year, while wages rose by a strong 7 per cent.

Citing a report in The Economist magazine, Mr Lee said: ‘Singapore is ‘booming, bustling and bursting at the seams, a developed country that grows at developing-country rates’.’

Singapore must keep adjusting and adapting to change to stay ahead - and remain competitive. Accordingly, Mr Lee said there will be more major policies and initiatives necessary from time to time.

He said the Ministry of Transport is already working on a land transport review to improve Singapore’s public transport system and keep its roads free flowing, adding that ‘painful measures’ like Electronic Road Pricing and Certificates of Entitlement are necessary.

‘Nowadays, it is not just bosses who drive cars, but also many unionists and workers,’ Mr Lee said.

The Ministry of Health is also rolling out many initiatives to ensure good and affordable healthcare, he said. Measures include a portable medical benefits system and means-testing in hospitals.

Source : Business Times - 30 Oct 2007

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PM Lee pledges further action on S’pore property if necessary

PM Lee pledges further action on S’pore property if necessary
He says Friday’s measure will inject some market reality
(SINGAPORE) Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong yesterday said the government will continue to monitor property market trends closely and take further action if necessary.

‘But more fundamentally than the ups and downs of the property cycle, the Government is committed to keeping housing affordable for Singaporeans, for all Singaporeans.’

- PM Lee

His remarks come shortly after Friday evening’s announcement on the scrapping of the deferred payment scheme for property purchases, which Mr Lee described yesterday as a step that will ‘help to dampen excessive speculation and help to inject some reality into the market’.

Touching on various facets of property in Singapore, Mr Lee said that the government will also inject more office space into the market over the next two to three years to boost supply for the sector, which is facing an acute shortage of prime office space because of strong growth.

The government is also releasing more land for executive condos (ECs), a hybrid of public and private housing, Mr Lee said in his speech at the NTUC National Delegates’ Conference yesterday morning.

‘But more fundamentally than the ups and downs of the property cycle, the government is committed to keeping housing affordable for Singaporeans, for all Singaporeans,’ he stressed.

‘We will continue to monitor the property market carefully and watch the trends and if necessary, we will continue to take more action. And therefore we will be able to make sure that the property market stays in balance over the long term.’
To keep public housing affordable, the Housing and Development Board is building more flats. And to cater to the aspirations of Singaporeans who aspire to own a private condo unit, the government will step up the supply of land for ECs. This housing form was first introduced in 1996, at a time when private home prices were running away.

ECs cater to the ’sandwich’ class of home buyers who cannot afford private housing but whose monthly household income is high enough to disqualify them from buying new flats in the public housing segment.
However, as the property market slumped and private home prices fell, the need for ECs diminished and the government stopped selling land for EC development. But the Ministry of National Development has re-introduced ECs into the Government Land Sales Programme, with a plot in Punggol that will be made available through the reserve list next month.
Source : Business Times - 30 Oct 2007

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7,750 Singapore homes could still be sold using deferred payments

7,750 Singapore homes could still be sold using deferred payments

Units are in projects that had approval; developers may opt not to do so though
By Joyce Teo, Property Correspondent

UP TO 7,750 unsold homes could still be available for purchase under the deferred payment scheme, even though it was scrapped last week.
The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) said these units are in developments that already have approval for the scheme, but which have not sold out yet.

On Friday night, the Government scrapped deferred payments with immediate effect, saying it was no longer relevant given the now-buoyant property market.

The scheme was introduced 10 years ago when the market was down. It allowed homebuyers to defer the bulk of a home’s purchase price until it was completed, which could be up to a few years later.

But the scheme was seen as encouraging speculation, as buyers could profit by reselling their homes before completion without much capital outlay.

Now, buyers will have to make progressive payments as construction proceeds.

The ending of the scheme is seen as a way to cool the hot property market. All developments that had not obtained approval for the scheme by last Friday can no longer offer it.

As at last Friday, 320 out of 443 licensed developers had approval to offer deferred payments for their projects, said the URA yesterday.

And about 140 of these developers still have a total of 7,750 residential units left unsold, it added.

But it is now up to the developers if they want to offer homebuyers the option of using the scheme, URA said.

The units include some in Bukit Sembawang’s 102-unit Paterson Suites in Paterson Road and its 123-unit Vermont on Cairnhill. Ho Bee offers the scheme for the 51 unsold homes in Turquoise, its 91-unit project in Sentosa Cove.

Buyers can also look to CapitaLand’s 327-unit Seafront @ Meyer in Meyer Road, which has 68 units left.

Developers which have approval for the scheme but have yet to start sales include Voda Land, for its 114-unit Amber Residences in Amber Road.

Even before deferred payments were axed, some developers had already dropped it of their own accord or never offered it. Those that did usually added a premium of 3 to 5 per cent of a home’s price to purchases under the scheme.

Many property analysts believe the withdrawal of the deferred payment scheme is likely to hit sentiment only in the short term. They point to factors such as robust demand, low interest rates and favourable sales even when developers do not offer the scheme.

Citigroup economist Chua Hak Bin said ending the scheme seems justified on prudential grounds. ‘There are growing signs of speculation, price distortions and accelerating mortgage growth,’ he wrote in a report.

‘Risk of a property glut longer-term cannot be ruled out if the boom is left unchecked.’

Source : Straits Times - 30 Oct 2007

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Keeping watchful eye on Singapore property market

Keeping watchful eye on Singapore property market

THE Government is watching the property market ‘carefully’ and taking steps to ensure it does not overheat.
It will inject more prime office space into the market over the next two to three years, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong yesterday.

And for those worried they have ‘missed the boat’ in the current residential property boom, he had this message: Don’t worry, there is enough land for affordable housing for all Singaporeans.

Speaking at the NTUC National Delegates Conference, Mr Lee highlighted two property segments ‘of concern’: prime office space and residential property.

Office rents have soared with strong economic growth, he noted. The financial and business services sectors are expanding, while many new businesses are moving in from the region and the West.

‘They’re wanting to grow their business in Singapore and we’re unable to meet it,’ said Mr Lee.

To ease the squeeze, the Government will increase supply. ‘We hope we’ll be able to inject more office space into the market over the next two or three years, not just to stabilise the office space market but provide the capacity so lots more businesses can come set up in Singapore and grow our economy.’

In the home market, Mr Lee noted the scrapping of the Deferred Payment Scheme for buyers of upcoming private homes.

No longer can they just fork out 10 or 20 per cent of the price and defer payment of the rest till the project is done. Now, they have to make periodic payments as construction progresses.

Mr Lee said the move will ‘help to dampen excessive speculation and inject some reality into the market’.

He reiterated that the Government ‘is committed to keeping housing affordable for all Singaporeans.’

The HDB is building more flats. The Government will offer more land for executive condominiums to help middle-income families who do not qualify for HDB flats.

‘We’re convinced we will be able to provide good housing for all Singaporeans over the medium to long term. There is enough land in Singapore. There is no need for anybody to get alarmed that this is the last chance and, if you don’t get on, you’ll miss the boat,’ said Mr Lee.

Looking ahead, the Government will continue to ‘make sure the property market stays in balance over the long term’, he added.
Source : Straits Times - 30 Oct 2007

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