News At A Glance

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...

Singapore has agreed to Malaysia’s request for an additional one-month suspension of the Rapid Transit System (RTS) project in the spirit of bilateral cooperation, and also agreed to waive additional costs incurred during the period. But Singapore reserves the right to claim any additional costs incurred beyond Sept 30, should Malaysia request any further extensions of the suspension period, which will now end on October 31. Both governments signed a bilateral agreement last year to build the 4km cross-border MRT link from Woodlands in Singapore to Bukit Chagar in Johor to help al...

One Central Park, a mixed-use building in Australia has been named one of the 50 Most Influential Tall Buildings of the Last 50 Years, by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH). The CTBUH has recognised each tall building on the list for “exemplifying a milestone over the last 50 years of a dialogue between iconicity, contextualism, environmental consciousness and structural innovation, according to a press release by the two developers. The recognition was made in conjunction with CTBUH’s 50th anniversary this year. Developed by Frasers Property Australia and Sekisui Ho...

Singapore maintained its spot as the world’s second freest economy in the world for the 12th consecutive year, according to the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World report 2019. Singapore achieved a perfect 10 score for its credit market regulations, tying with Hong Kong, Malta, and New Zealand from amongst a list of more than 160 countries. Credit market regulations measures refer to the ownership of banks, the extent of government borrowing relative to private-sector borrowing, and control of interest rates. In addition, Singapore also achieved the top spot for its busin...

Mr Chia Ngiang Hong, President of the Real Estate Developers Association Singapore (Redas), spoke recently about the fact that Singapore developers are concerned about lacklustre new home sales despite the 1.5 per cent increase in private property prices in the second quarter of 2019. Speaking at the Redas Mid-Autumn Festival lunch, Mr Chia said that although prices have gone up, it “does not reflect the true state of the market”. “New home sales remain lacklustre on the back of existing cooling measures, abundant unsold stock and worrying economy. The general take-up rate is also at...

Singapore’s Ministry of National Development has revised the development charge (DC) rates for the period 1 September 2019 to 29 February 2020. Muted adjustments were made to the DC rates for commercial use – a rise of 1.7% across 59 sectors, smaller than the 9.8% increment in March. Rates for non-landed residential use were reduced by 0.3%, compared to a 5.5% cut in March. The main changes are: 1. Use Group A (Commercial) – increased by average of 1.7%. 59 out of the 118 sectors have increases in DC rates ranging from 3% to 7%. The largest increase of 7% applies to the following sectors...