News At A Glance

Budget 2020 was announced on Tuesday, 18 February 2020. Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Mr Heng Swee Keat went into immediate concerns hovering over Singapore economy.  Budget 2020 sets aside SS$5.6 billion to help firms, workers and households amid the Covid-19 outbreak, with a focus on the future, from economic transformation to climate change. Taking into consideration that the Singapore economy faces considerable uncertainty in the coming year with recovery derailed by the uncertainty brought forth by the Covid-19 outbreak, a Stabilisation and Support Package of both...

The Government Land Sales (GLS) Programme for the first half of 2020 was announced by the Ministry of National Development (MND) on 3 December 2019. There will be three sites on the Confirmed List and eight on the Reserve List, yielding a total of 6,490 private residential units (including 600 executive condominium or EC units), 114,000 square metres (sq m) gross floor area (GFA) of commercial space and 1,070 hotel rooms. Two of the confirmed sites are for residential use with one for executive condominium (EC), and one mixed-use site which can yield about 1,775 private residential units an...

Singapore has stepped up in its place and ranked top for real estate investment prospects in terms of price increases in 2020 according to an Urban Land Institute and PricewaterhouseCoopers report released on property trends in the region. Singapore has benefited from an uptick in interest among investors who are avoiding China and Hong Kong. There has also been a pick up in luxury home sales, gold storage and foreign currency deposits. Over the past few quarters, apartment prices have rebounded in Singapore, signalling resilience in the residential market, while...

The Singapore economy grew by 0.5 per cent in the third quarter year on year. Figures released by the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) showed a slight uptick in Singapore’s economic growth for the third quarter, with a slightly higher than 0.2 per cent expansion from the previous quarter, revised upwards from a 0.1 per cent growth. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) showed the economy expanded an annualised 2.1 per cent on a quarter-on-quarter and seasonally adjusted basis, reversing the 2.7 per cent contraction in the second quarter. The ministry added that the economy is exp...

Singapore took first spot in the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) 2019, making it the world’s most competitive economy. Improving 1.3 points, it scored 84.8 out of a possible 100, overtaking the United States to clinch the top spot. Compiled by the World Economic Forum, the GCI 2019 covers 141 economies and provide an annual assessment of the drivers of productivity and long-term economic growth defined by the set of institutions, policies and factors.   Categorised into environment, human capital, markets and innovative ecosystem, the 12 assessment pillars...

A Good Class Bungalow (GCB) on 5E Tanglin Hill was transacted at S$31.5 million, translating to S$1,915 psf. The rare GCB land plot in Tanglin Hill is located within the Ridley Park GCB area. Occupying the land area of 16,446 sq ft, the GCB sits on a regularly shaped freehold site with a wide frontage. The land is elevated above street levels, allowing for a basement garage and two storeys above ground. The current family has outgrew the property and decided to move to a bigger GCB. This was their first home, having purchased the property in 1984. Since the property on site is more tha...

Conservation or heritage shophouses are considered rare assets as they were built between the early-1800s and mid-1900s. As heritage buildings, they continue to be an important part of Singapore’s cityscape and serve as a link to the nation’s past. Owing to their vintage charm and limited supply, commercial shophouses offer intrinsic value and are also not subject to the recent tax hikes in the residential sector. This makes shophouses an attractive investment real estate asset class. Shophouse transactions in Singapore with a value of S$10 million and above...

The Malaysia government has announced that it will lower the threshold for foreign buyers to purchase high-rise properties in urban areas from RM1 million (S$330,000) to RM600,000 (S$197,000) in a bid to reduce the number of unsold apartments in Malaysia’s major cities, which are worth RM8.3 billion. The lowered threshold is only applicable to existing condominium and apartment units that are unsold and will only starts from 1 January till the end of 2020. In Malaysia, property units costing RM1 million and above are usually deemed luxury properties. Within Johor, there are 51,000 uns...

Singapore’s importance as a gateway city has make it an attractive destination for investors. Investments in Singapore has grown despite talks of an ailing economy.   Research by professional services firm Accenture has reported that fintech investments in Singapore for the nine months ended 30 September jumped 69 per cent, from US$435 million in the corresponding period last year to US$735 million. The payment category doubled to about US$251 million from US$117.5 million and accounted for 34 per cent of fintech fund raising. Series funding which typically targets comp...

The preliminary figure for Q3 2019 stands at 3,572 units. This is not only up 18.6 per cent year on year, it is also the highest since the 4,538 units sold in Q2 2013.  The 1,270 private homes moved in September is 36.3 per cent higher than the 932 units in the corresponding period last year, and 13.1 per cent higher from the 1,123 units from the previous month. As of end September, developers have moved 7,760 homes, up 11.5 per cent y-o-y. According to developers’ submissions to the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), 1,714 new homes were launched in the month of Septemb...