REVIEW CURRENT COOLING MEASURES BEFORE IMPOSING NEW ONES : REDAS

REVIEW CURRENT COOLING MEASURES BEFORE IMPOSING NEW ONES : REDAS
Oct 1, 2012
   
Another round of property cooling measures should not be implemented until a thorough review of the existing measures has been conducted, according to Wong Heang Fine (pictured), President of the Real Estate Developers’ Association of Singapore (REDAS).

PropertyGuru had earlier carried an article which reported that the government could introduce new measures or tweak existing ones due to the third round of quantitative easing (QE3) in the US, which could heat up Singapore’s property market.

“If history is any guide, reaction to the residential market to QE3 in Singapore will probably take the form of a limited, short-term boost in buyer sentiment that will probably peter out before end of 2012”, said Wong, quoting a report from Colliers International.

Additional cooling measures could be detrimental to Singapore developers as they are already facing many problems such as the possible oversupply of housing and fears of a global economic slowdown due to economic woes in the US and Europe.

As such, the property industry’s “harvests” for 2012 are “somewhat uneven and somewhat calibrated”, Wong noted.

“While we see ‘withering harvests’ in certain segments of the residential market, crops in other sectors like the industrial market are reaping ‘golden harvests’. We are also seeing ‘new crops’ emerging in the hospitality industry as well as ‘new seeds’ being sown in the Jurong Lake District for hotel developments.”

Lee Liat Yeang, Partner at Rodyk & Davidson's Real Estate Practice Group, said: “Based on what I see and sense, further cooling measures are neither necessary nor likely, at least for the rest of this year for the residential property market.”


Info courtesy  - PropertyGuru.com.sg