200,000 housing units in the pipeline
By Romesh Navaratnarajah:The government is planning to launch a massive stock of some 200,000 new housing units by 2016. This is equivalent to the building of four new Ang Mo Kio towns.
National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan announced this in his latest blog post this afternoon.
He noted that 80,000 private properties, 10,000 executive condominiums and 110,000 public housing units will be constructed to cater to the needs of home buyers. However, he cautioned prospective buyers not to rush into the market and to exercise prudence. "Do bear in mind that the current low interest rate is unusual, and the normal high interest rate will return in time to come," he said.
The Minister also admitted that housing supply hasn't been meeting demand because of under-building in the past and current high investment demand. He was quick to add: "But we have been ramping up supply and in 2,3 and 4 years' time, supply will have caught up with pent-up demand."
Meanwhile, Mr Khaw reflected on last week's sudden announcement of property cooling measures and said they were necessary to cool the market. "The alternative of doing nothing, allowing the prices to run beyond economic fundamentals, will only invite a large and serious price correction in the future. That will not do anyone any good."
"The package was carefully formulated to protect first-timers. Investors buying additional properties may be disappointed but I hope they will in due course come to accept that the package will also be good for them. In any case, many of the new measures are counter-cyclical in nature, to be lifted when the market regains its balance."Image: Chart showing the breakdown in the supply of housing units planned over the next four years. (Source: MND) Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor of PropertyGuru, wrote this story. To contact him about this or other stories email romesh@allproperty.com.sg Related Stories: Govt finalising singles policy
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