Decent $100k Cars Are Now A Reality
Dropping COE prices make small, cheap cars much more accessible
Singapore -
It’s amazing what a few weeks can do. Since January, Singapore has gone from a market that was hostile to small, practical runabouts to one where owning a small car isn’t total financial insanity.
And it’s all down to one thing: Certificate of Entitlement (COE) prices. Burgeoning car COE quotas have mean plummeting COE values. Since the beginning of this year, COE price for a ‘mainstream’ Category A (for cars 1.6-litres/less than 130bhp) cert has dropped $8,811 dollars. In February’s most recent round of bidding, it ended up at $57,199 - a landmark, since that’s a price we haven’t seen for almost three years, or April 2012.
Another example of just how far COE prices have dropped are the kinds of cars that have appeared on the market, as well as the price drops for some of the smaller models.
Kia’s Rio compact hatchback was launched globally almost four years ago, but it will finally make its Singaporean debut here in May, with a very un-threatening price tag of $94,000 with COE.
In the meantime, we see prices of existing machines drop into much more comfortable territory as well. Hyundai’s excellent Accent which was one of the year’s first sub-$100k cars (by a dollar no less) is now $94,999 with COE, while its sister-competitor, the Kia Forte K3, is $93,000 with COE.
Even more slightly more expensive machines have taken a turn towards affordability, with the Ford Fiesta 1.0 retailing at nearly $120k when we first tested it earlier this year, now going for $97,999 with COE in its cheapest form.
While there are quite a few other sub-$100k cars that aren’t in the dire end of the ownership scale, like the Nissan Note and Almera, as well as the Mitsubishi Attrage, it isn’t all plain hatches and sedans either: Citroen just launched the Cactus, which raised as many eyebrows for its funky styling as its $99,988 with COE price too.
And now that everyone seems to be hanging around waiting for prices to drop further we recommend waiting for a bit too, but not for too long since we don’t think COEs will ever be $20,000 cheap ever again.
And keep in mind that Singapore’s loan restrictions for cars still stand, so you’ll need at least $40k cash to put a down payment on one of these machines. Car ownership is certainly still not for all, but at least it’s not as bad as it was.
