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I REFER to the report, ‘Plans for new group to lift standards of housing agents’ (ST, Feb 4), in the face of rising complaints against rogue agents.

Recently, I encountered an agent from a top agency who tried to reduce the sale price of my flat and pressure me into quickly closing the sale.

I made a complaint to the agency. But it replaced the agent only after he had filed successfully, against my wishes, with the HDB for the first appointment.

Many people are using a large portion of their CPF money to buy a roof over their heads. Hence, I urge government agencies to do more to protect HDB flat owners from rogue agents. It should not be left to the industry to self-regulate as this has been unsatisfactory so far.

I suggest the following:

That agents representing sellers cannot represent buyers for the same property , that is, buyers’ agents must be independent of sellers’ agents because of conflict of interest.

That a list of registered agents be maintained as well as a list of barred agents and that no agency is allowed to employ agents who have been debarred to practise under its umbrella.

That HDB conduct workshops to educate flat owners on all the procedures, legal forms and declarations, etc, involved in the sale and purchase of HDB flats.

I hope the relevant authorities can look into these suggestions.

Goh Hock Tee

Source : Straits Times - 6 Feb 2008

Demand for these state-owned buildings is strong due to relatively low rentals.

ANYONE with a hankering for a home with lots of nature and space, and does not mind living some distance from town might want to take note.

The Singapore Land Authority (SLA) will be leasing out four of these colonial bungalows this month, along with two semi-detached houses.

The properties are in Maida Vale and Brompton Road in Seletar, Gibraltar Crescent in Sembawang and Lornie Road near Bukit Timah.

This comes on the heels of a sizzling response to five similar properties the SLA put on the bidding block last month. They drew 75 bids in all and were rented out for about double the guide rents.

All these form part of the SLA’s stock of 2,360 black-and-white homes - properties ranging from apartments to bungalows dating back to the 1930s and are inherited from British colonial days.

Demand for these state-owned buildings has traditionally been very strong, partly because of relatively low asking rentals.

Monthly guide rents for the latest batch of homes, for example, start at $1,800 for a 1,367 sq ft semi-detached house in Brompton Road. They go up to $6,600 for a Gibraltar Crescent bungalow with 7,212 sq ft of built-up area and 16,145 sq ft of land.

Mr Ku Swee Yong, director of business development and marketing at Savills Singapore, thinks the homes can fetch even more.

‘These guide rents are extremely attractive. Normally, you would be able to get at least double the price, if the properties are in good condition,’ he said.

Last month, the SLA rented out three apartments in Clemenceau Avenue North at between $1,856 and $2,500 - double their guide rents of $960 to $1,110. Two more bungalows in Alexandra Road and Dover were let for $20,258 and $15,100, also about twice the guidance.

The guide rents are decided by the SLA’s valuers, who take into account the property ’s last rental, location, condition and whether it comes with a swimming pool, air conditioning and furnishings.

All the properties are in move-in condition and are regularly maintained by SLA-appointed managing agents.

The homes, which come either unfurnished or partially furnished, are located in areas such as Sembawang, Alexandra Park, Adams Park, Telok Blangah, Bukit Timah and Woodleigh Park.

The SLA will put another eight properties up for rent next month, including in Bukit Timah and Newton. Another 11 are in the pipeline between April and June.

Monthly rents range from $400 for a small apartment to more than $20,000 for a black-and-white bungalow.

About 91 per cent of the homes are currently occupied, a rise of about 6 per cent over a few months ago. Most are let for two years, although tenants are normally allowed to renew their leases when they lapse.

Deirdre Dempster, for instance, is planning to extend her lease at a black-and-white bungalow at Goodwood Hill when it runs out in August. The 40-year-old, who is in marketing, has been living there for four years with her banker husband and two kids.

‘I love it. I wouldn’t trade this house for anything,’ she said. ‘What attracted me was the area and the grounds, and there’s a lot of character and history attached to these properties . I hope they don’t tear them down.’

Interested tenants can bid for this month’s properties via the SLA’s new open bidding system. An open house will be held for the homes, and bids will be accepted for a week after the date of the viewing.

fiochan@sph.com.sg

‘I love it. I wouldn’t trade this house for anything… There’s a lot of character and history attached to these properties .’

MS DEMPSTER, who is in marketing, on her black-and-white bungalow at Goodwood Hill

‘Normally, you would be able to get at least double the price, if the properties are in good condition.’

MR KU, of Savills Singapore, who believes monthly guide rents for black-and-white homes are now extremely attractive.

Source : Straits Times - 6 Feb 2008

The Singapore Land Authority (SLA) is offering another six residential state properties for rent.

They comprise four bungalows and two semi-detached properties in Seletar, Sembawang and Lornie Road.

They are being offered through an open bidding system from 16 February.

The system is more transparent than the previous first-come-first-served procedure under the waiting list or balloting system.

Bidders can submit their bids at SLA’s office on Monday, 18 February, following the Open House on Saturday.

Currently, SLA manages about 2,360 residential state properties.

It will progressively place those with available tenancies of at least two years on the open bidding system.

SLA has projected that it will place eight more properties for rent in March and about 36 units in total by the first half of the year.

Source : ChannelNewsAsia - 5 Feb 2008

Bank expects modest 0-5% growth in mass and mid-tier segments.

ANALYSTS from Swiss bank UBS believe Singapore’s property market will ‘remain intact’, but they are nonetheless projecting a drop of 5 per cent in prime property prices for the year.

In the more affordable mass and mid-tier segments, where prices increased at a slower pace, UBS expects a modest growth of between 0-5 per cent in prices this year.

In its report on the Singapore property market, UBS says that in light of the uncertainty over the global economic outlook, buyers are likely to defer purchases of new property for at least six months. UBS said that demand ‘is highly dependent on the market’s outlook for the next three or four years, when the projects are completed’.

It added that with supply of new homes on the rise, there could be pressure on developers to reduce launch prices to ’stimulate demand’ - and some developers may start cutting prices as early as the second quarter of this year.

While the larger developers are expected to have more holding power, smaller ones could feel the strain of holding costs sooner. UBS estimates that of the units to be launched between this year and 2010, around 9 per cent are held by small, unlisted developers. Still, it said that there is little evidence to suggest that the market will be affected if small developers ‘capitulate and cut prices aggressively when holding costs build up’.

In its report on the current property market conditions, UBS made comparisons with the previous property slump of 1998. ‘Markets appear to be pricing a 70 per cent fall in Singapore residential prices, similar to 1998,’ it noted.

But UBS said: ‘We think the residential market in 2008 will not replicate the 1998 scenario where launch prices fell by 50 per cent in a year, and stock prices fell by 75 per cent.’

It added that expected GDP growth of 3.5 per cent should keep population inflow positive, which combined with negative real interest rates and low unemployment should underpin resale prices.

‘Even if job growth were to halve in 2008 to 90,000-100,000, this could still mean housing demand for at least around 15,000-18,000 units, assuming half the newly- weds (23,000 per annum) want to move out, and around 6,000 new households - of new permanent residents and expatriates - relocate to Singapore,’ UBS added. It pointed out that the figure is much higher than the expected number of home completions - 8,700 in 2008 and 16,000 in 2009.

As such UBS believes that current share prices for listed property developers have been ‘over-corrected’.

‘Allgreen’s price ($1.17 per share currently) attributes no value to its residential (portfolio), while City Development’s price ($12 per share currently) implies a 70 per cent writedown in unsold land,’ said UBS.

UBS said that it has adjusted the revalued net asset value and earnings per share for Allgreen, City Developments, CapitaLand and Keppel Land, and given current price levels ‘we have retained our Buy ratings on all these developers’.

Source : Business Times - 5 Feb 2008

Prices could soften if ’specuvestors’ are forced to offload properties.

Speculative activity took a breather in Q4 last year as the number of subsales as well as their share of total private home deals were down sharply from the preceding two quarters of 2007. However, many in the industry are wondering whether subsales will again spike closer to the physical completion dates for some high-profile projects sold substantially on deferred payment (DP) schemes.

Among the projects that will be keenly watched are The Sail @ Marina Bay, The Coast (at Sentosa Cove), The Grange, and The Suites at Central in the Devonshire Road area, all of which were sold amidst much hype. The first two projects are scheduled to receive Temporary Occupation Permit (TOP) next year and the latter two, this year.

The coming wave of subsales - if there’s one - may not be so much a reflection of speculative froth in the market but rather of buyers seeking to offload their units before the DP expires.

Those who bought their properties on DP schemes would typically have paid 10 or 20 per cent of their purchase price to the developer with the next payment (of 75 per cent or 65 per cent, respectively) deferred till the project receives TOP. By TOP, the developer would collect 85 per cent of the sale price.

Such buyers can shop for a bank loan until closer to the project’s TOP date.

However, buyers who picked up multiple units in some of these developments on DP schemes and are still sitting on them may not be able to secure sufficient housing loans to foot the bills when the projects obtain TOP.

Banks may turn cautious over advancing loans for multiple property purchases. Some, for example, may only be prepared to lend up to 70 per cent - based on their credit assessment and servicing ability of the borrower - instead of 80-90 per cent, of the purchase price of the property or its current value, whichever is lower.

These ’specuvestors’ may find that it makes more sense to sell their units in the subsale market before they receive a big bill from developers.

Such subsales, while apparently ‘forced’ by the difficulty of finding enough housing loans, could still yield handsome gains for such investors - given the huge rise in upmarket home prices.

However, if a sizeable number of such properties come on the subsale market, some sellers may be willing to accept below-market values. This will clip developers’ pricing power when they sell new projects in nearby locations.

Already, BT understands that some individual investors, anticipating ‘dumping’ from speculators, are teaming up to snap up some of these units at below-market prices.

Jones Lang LaSalle’s head of research (South-east Asia) Chua Yang Liang reckoned that some buyers who purchased units on DP during the initial launches may begin to review their options around five to six months ahead of TOP. ‘Supply of such properties in the subsale market could potentially increase from the latter half of this year, which could potentially see prices easing,’ Dr Chua said.

Of course, it may be a different story altogether if sentiment in the high-end market picks up again.

A lot will also depend on the holding power of those who still have units they’ve bought from developers. Some may not face problems getting housing loans, because they have the ability to service them. Such buyers may just go ahead and pay that big instalment when the project receives TOP.

Another factor that will bear on the extent of ‘forced’ subsales is the profile of buyers in each project - the mix of those who bought units with a view to living in them, and those who purchased with an eye on flipping before the project’s completion.

A seasoned property agent told BT that a condo in the East Coast area receiving TOP soon recently saw several buyers offering their units at prices considerably below what was being achieved just a few weeks ago - before the stock market plunge.

Then there’s another theory. While we may see a flurry of subsales for projects sold in the past on DP, it will be a different story going ahead.

With no new projects approved by the authorities for DP schemes since DP was scrapped in late October 2007, new launches going ahead will attract fewer potential speculators. This is because those who buy into projects without DP schemes know they will have to make regular progress payments to the developer and in all likelihood have to obtain housing loans.

‘You’ll see more genuine buyers in the market,’ as ERA Realty Network divisional director Andrew Soh said. ‘Developers may still be able to maintain current prices, or even achieve higher prices. But instead of weeks, it may take them months, or even years, to sell out projects.’

‘As new project launches attract fewer speculators, I may have to sell physical homes and not just paper (options),’ he quipped.

Source : Business Times - 5 Feb 2008