Queenstown, Bukit Merah, and Toa Payoh would definitely have made some buyers happy – these are popular hot spots, and new flat launches in these areas are a rarity.
To be clear, this measure alone will not suffice to drive down resale flat prices – not with demand far outstripping the available supply. It can, however, prevent a slew of high-priced transactions from pushing up flat prices even quicker. This is a much-needed break for first-time buyers, who are looking in the resale market.The Singapore rental market has been soft for a long time; so for landlords, 2022 was a welcome year.
Likewise, we’ve seen more innovations such as hybridised rates , or board rate options* that will appeal to shorter-term investors. Given the sudden upshot of interest rates, this may leave some buyers having spent much more than they expected. In cases where the monthly repayment now pushes past the borrowers’ debt servicing ratios, we should consider allowing them to sell without the SSD penalty. This is preferable to pinning them in place and chewing up huge amounts of their CPF or savings, which becomes a problem further down the road.