Strong property potential for northeast Singapore

Eugene Lim, KEO of ERA Realty, walking attendees through key insights to the Singapore property market, providing a comprehensive outlook for the year ahead.

Singapore's property prices will stabilise for both public and private housing, and the northeast region presents great potential for buyers.

By Gordon Tay

With the first quarter of 2016 well underway, property seekers were keen to find out about current property market statistics and what these data trends could tell them about the outlook for the local property market. This interest was reflected by the large crowd at the Kingsford Waterbay show suite, where the latest edition of PropertyGuru's Guru Talk was held.

Guru Talk is a series of property knowledge empowerment seminars aimed at providing a comprehensive Guru View of the property market. The edition held on 27 February 2016 saw Eugene Lim, Key Executive Officer of ERA Realty Network, providing some highly regarded insight to the local property scene, as well his expert predictions for the rest of the year.

Giving attendees a holistic view of Singapore's property market, Lim covered vast ground, sharing his views on data trends across both the government and private housing sectors.

Broaching the topic of the HDB resale market first, he pointed out that though prices had been on the decline for two consecutive years, this trend stopped in the last quarter of 2015. In fact, prices saw an increase. This, however, does not mean a quick price rebound but rather, price stabilisation.

"Property prices have been trending downwards over the last two years but what is interesting to note is that the price decrease stopped in the last quarter. In the final quarter of 2015, based on HDB statistics, prices have edged up by 0.1 percent.

"Is this going to carry on? Are we expecting a price rebound? As a homeowner, you would most definitely want to see that. However, the government has been 'balancing' the market with increased supply. We see that the HDB has been launching a lot more new flats, especially in mature estates. They will not be flooding the newer estates anymore, so on a high level, all this points to the stabilisation of HDB resale prices."Continuing with his coverage of the local property market, Lim went on to speak about the private residential sector, where he pointed out trends similar to the HDB resale market the rate of year-on-year price decrease had slowed down, indicating price stabilisation, something reflected in price points from recent months.

Continuing with his coverage of the local property market, Lim went on to speak about the private residential sector, where he pointed out trends similar to the HDB resale market the rate of year-on-year price decrease had slowed down, indicating price stabilisation, something reflected in price points from recent months.

"Year-on-year, we see very little change (in private residential price points), which means the market has started to stabilise. The rate of decline has actually slowed down and monthly prices are quite stable. Now, with all the moderations in the market, you'll find that price lines plotted across a monthly chart have stabilised, and the prices in the private property market are expected to maintain a status quo, " Lim said.

He cautioned: "One thing we need to be aware of is that we are a very small country, and as a small country, we are a 'price taker'. Any external shock will affect Singapore today, more so than in the past, as we continue to be a very open market."

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Master Jet Lee intrigued attendees with his take on how fengshui can play a role in property purchases.[/caption]

When asked to look into his crystal ball Eugene mentioned that the northeast region holds good potential for property investments, citing reasons such as the rise of nearby business and industrial parks, and estates in the region, like Hougang, which is part of the Remaking our Heartlands (ROH) programme. Furthermore, the Cross Island Line, which will cut through the region, will be complete by 2030.

As a bonus, fengshui master Jet Lee, Principal and Founder of Yi-Culture, shared with attendees his views on how fengshui can be involved in a property purchase. He also gave his Singapore property market outlook, while boldly predicting the lifting of certain cooling measures by Q3 2017.

For full coverage of this Guru Talk seminar, please watch our videos at bit.ly/SGOutlook

			This article was first published in the print version The PropertyGuru News & Views. Download PDF of full print issues or read more stories now!

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