A massive cd rack adorns one wall of Daniel Boey's study.

By Illiyas Ong

iProperty.com Singapore is taking you 'Through the Keyhole' of Singapore's most beautiful and unique homes. We talk to the celebrities and stars that live in them and get their thoughts on art, design, and, of course, the latest gossip.

Daniel Boey hates the colour of his house. The façade of the three-storey terrace along East Coast Road is a gaudy shade of blue you'd expect more on a bleached convertible in Miami then in the home of an authority on fashion—but thankfully, the tackiness doesn't make its way indoors.

Best known for running the women's and men's Fashion Weeks here in Singapore, Daniel plies plenty of style and savvy culled from his many years in the industry to deck out his 2,700-square-foot apartment, where the bachelor has been living alone since June 2011. The ugly blue, as you might expect, wasn't his choice.

The bathroom exudes a grunge vibe thanks to personal memorabilia stuck onto the walls.

"Before I moved in, this place was a very nice beige," Daniel explains. "But then they painted it this ugly shade of blue! It looks

According to the URA, private residential properties can only be rented out or sublet for periods of six months …

A recent article in The Straits Times highlighted the growing trend of home owners and tenants renting out spare rooms to paying guests for short periods of times (such as a few days).

Websites such as Airbnb, Wimdu, 9flats and Roomorama have sprouted to facilitate these lettings by effectively creating a marketplace for renters and rentees.

Airbnb currently has over 230 listings for rooms for rent in Singapore, which can be stayed in for as low as $40 a day, or less than one fifth what a typical hotel room would cost. Some hosts even offer premium services such as breakfast and complimentary toiletries and EZ-link cards.

From the host's perspective, it's a great way to earn some extra dollars from a spare room, while from the guest's perspective they can save a lot of money and get a different experience versus staying in a hotel.

The catch? It's illegal

Sounds like a win-win idea… but it's illegal. According to the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), private residential properties

Here are five of the hottest interior design trends shaping the way we currently live. (Getty images)

By Cameron Woo (for iProperty)

What are the up-and-coming trends in the world of interior design?

As an interior designer, being constantly asked this question pushes me to stay updated on current trends of living spaces, as well as to envision interior trends five, 10, and maybe even 20 years down the road.

Interior design is alive. It constantly evolves over time, reflecting living standards, affluence levels and lifestyles. If you are looking to give your home a fresh new look, do read on for five of the hottest interior design trends shaping the way we currently live. I personally anticipate that they will continue doing so way into the near future.

Trend #1: Stepping off the beaten track

Less conventional Asian homes play with colour and reflect the personalities of the occupants. Image courtesy of …

People are consciously moving away from more conventional designs. A more adventurous consumer is emerging—someone not afraid of introducing new ideas into their homes. In Asia, this means using new colours and materials in homes, instead of sticking to safe and common colours like neutrals,

It takes the average Singapore resident more than half his lifetime to afford a luxury home in his country. Image …

By Sheena Chua

43 years. That is the number of years that an average Singapore resident needs to pay for a luxury home in the city-state.

The figure was revealed in a Bloomberg report about the growing disparity between incomes and housing prices in emerging markets. The report, which compared national income averages against the prices of homes in prime locations, concluded that Mumbai was the world's least affordable home market. Singapore placed last among the 14 countries ranked, behind other Asian cities like Jakarta (61.7 years), Bangkok (67) and Hong Kong (96.4).

In Singapore, a typical piece of luxury property spanning 100 sq m (about 1,076 sq ft) costs about US$2.71 million (S$3.38 million)—roughly 43 times the nation's average annual income. This means that at an average price of S$3,149 per sq ft, a luxury home here would require an average resident with a typical per-capita purchasing power of US$59,900 (S$74,679) more than half his life to pay off.

Calculations were based

The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) recently released their 1Q12 real estate statistics. (Yahoo! file phot …

The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) recently released their 1Q12 real estate statistics, and in this article we will look at the patterns emerging from the numbers for both the residential and non-residential (office, shop and industrial) segments.

Residential — Prices fall for the first time since 2Q09

The URA Private Property Index (PPI) fell by 0.1% in 1Q12, the first decline since 2Q09 after 10 quarters of growth. However, it is still up 3.5% on a year-on-year basis and is 16.1% and 13.6% above the previous 2Q08 and 2Q96 highs respectively.

If we drill further down into the numbers, an interesting pattern emerges. The Property Price Indices for the Core Central Region and Rest of Central Region both fell by 0.6%, while the Outside Central Region Price Index rose by 1.1%. Not only did prices in the Outside Central Region increase, but it re-accelerated from the 0.6% increase in 4Q11.

We can interpret this phenomenon as continued bullishness in the mass market segment, while the

Ever wondered how does the URA plan the physical development of Singapore? (Getty Images)



Whether you're looking at investing in residential, commercial or industrial property, the Urban Redevelopment Authority's (URA) area planning and guidelines will have a long-term impact on your property's values.

In this post we will look at the different types of development that the URA plans for and in particular we will focus on industrial developments as interest from investors has been increasing in this segment.

The URA's role is to plan the physical development of Singapore and to optimise the use of the country's limited land resources. To this end it puts out the Concept Plan, which is a long-term strategic land use plan that guides Singapore's development over a forty to fifty year period, ensuring that Singapore has sufficient land to meet long term population, economic and quality of life goals. It is reviewed every ten years, and the last one was completed in 2011.

For medium term planning the URA also has a Master Plan, which details statutory land use and guides

By Getty Goh

URA released the 1Q2012 flash estimate for the Private Property Price Index (PPPI) on 2 April 2012, which showed a moderate decline for the index. Even though the drop was marginal, it was significant as it represented the first decline since the property market rebounded strongly from the 2008 Global Financial Crisis.

To the casual observer, the dip may come as a surprise. After all, there were many media reports on how strong new property sales were in the first three months of 2012. One of the local property portals even reported that private homes transaction in January 2012 was "a whopping 2,077 units compared to just 670 in December 2011". Looking at such media reports, it would not have been too unreasonable for many people to go away with the impression that property prices were still on the rise.

Trends in the Singapore property market

Those of you who have read my articles (see blog by Mr. Propwise in Dec 2011) or attended my weekly free preview would have heard

Singapore's property market has been in the limelight for some time now. Market sentiments have been upbeat, as telling in the fact that many new real estate projects have been selling like hot cakes when they are launched.

For many investors, the objective of investing into properties is to earn rental income. As it is, the current rental yield of residential properties in Singapore is about 3% to 4%. But other than buying properties to earn from rental income directly, an indirect approach to similarly earn from such income is to invest in real estate investment trusts (REITs).

What are REITs?

A REIT owns properties and collects rental income. Essentially, REITs are unit trusts listed on the stock exchange. They are mainly invested in long-term real estate where rental income is its main income. In which case, REITs are listed in the stock market so as to get funding from the public. With these funds raised, the company buys and manages real estate to earn rental income. In this type