S’pore luxury homes still in demand among foreigners
The New Futura, comprising two 36-storey towers, is priced from S$3.8 million for two-bedroom units to S$39.8 million for a penthouse. PHOTO: CDL
Study shows pick-up in volumes since 2016 in the luxury segment and in average prices since Q4 2017.
THE housing market recovery is, by now, firmly entrenched. After almost four years of tepid growth brought on by a series of cooling measures and a sluggish economy, housing unit sales and land prices have rebounded strongly since mid-2017 .
The cooling measures remain largely in place despite small tweaks to the seller’s stamp duty (SSD). In fact, these measures were marginally strengthened when, at Budget 2018, the Finance Minister announced that the buyer’s stamp duty was raised to 4 per cent for properties above S$1 million and purchased from Feb 20, 2018. Taken together, these policy adjustments suggest that policymakers believe that the market is finely poised – not too hot for the government to worry about systemic risks to households’ balance sheets and mortgage repayments, nor too cold to dampen the positive effects of mildly-rising prices that feed into consumer spending.
Expanding ‘prime’ areas
One important subset of the market is the luxury segment, defined as units priced at or above S$2,500 psf, and at least 1,500 sq ft in size. While the overall price uplift has now brought “mass market” homes (excluding executive condos) to consistently S$1,000 to S$1,200 psf – ...
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