Will home sellers lower prices?

[abbby]

I do find many home seller kind of greedy still, in the current market situation, home sellers are still asking for sky high prices for their properties averaging from $1,600 psf to $2,500 psf. Seems like reality has not hit them?

[PNGMK]

Prices will go up actually once Singapore has become a safe haven because we have a competent government and people will be fleeing hot spots once they can travel.

[Max Headroom]

Just because people want to stay in Singapore doesn't mean it's going to happen. In fact, it's pretty clear that inflows have been pinched to a mere trickle already.

What we need to understand is that the fat property years are well and truly behind us. Going from a couple of million people to 6 million invariably involved rising real estate prices. Huge demand, so-so supply mah.

However, going forward, population growth - if any at all - will remain minimal/negligible.

Meanwhile, the property ecosystem lags behind the curve, due to their typically pretty long operating horizon; the overhang, for instance, is still hugemongous.

In addition, they tend to do everything they can do keep pricing artificially sticky during downturns, usually with freebies and other incentives. While stocks last

I reckon whichever way you slice it, it's lean years lai liao leh.

[mary_tan]

Homeowner wants sell at high price but buyer want to buy low!!!! Everywhere is the same!!!
Homeowner need to be educate that the supply exceeds demand!!!! Or they'll be holding the property to the grave yard!!!

[abbby]

I do see people still holding up their prices really well and High...market still not affecting them I guess.

[PNGMK]

Interest rates are low, rental returns aren't great but they are better than bank deposit returns... why sell low? (Also I suspect construction of new properties will be hammered for a few years drying up supply as there will be a shortage of construction workers for some time).

[Wd40]

I do see people still holding up their prices really well and High...market still not affecting them I guess.

It is too early to see any impact. 1st rents need to fall due to rising vacancies. Right now, most affected are workers from F&B, Tourism etc those at the lowest level who stay in dormitories etc.

I think there will be second order effects soon, when those of us working from home, are going to lose our jobs. There is no reason many of us are getting paid in Singapore dollars, while we could all sit in village in India and do the same job at 1/4th the salary as many of us from that village in India, housed here. So I see another bout of redundancies and offshoring next year. As houses remain vacant and owners dont get the rents to pay their loan installments, prices could fall.

[Max Headroom]

Good point, Wd40.

[abbby]

Good analysis, wd40. Have to agree with you on your points.

[PNGMK]

I've been on this board for ~15 years. It's always clear who wants housing prices to fall and who doesn't. I remember reading a post here years ago where someone said "Look, stop buying into the belief that prices will fall because you have way too many renters here and the view is clearly biased and you've actually done harm to people by telling them to hold back on buying" or something to that effect.

If there is a dip it will be like previous recessions and that is triggered by landlords bailing out and too much stock on the market. It won't last long at all and it will be over before you can move I suspect. The very low liquidity in this market (really low) means it take very little change in volume for prices to "appear" to be going down or up dramatically but the harsh reality is that the stock rarely turns over that much. In Australia people buy and sell homes approx every 7 years. Here it's closer to two to three decades I'd bet.

[Zhou Anqi]

really depends on the homeowner needs!!! If they can hold of course they don't want to sell low!

[TropicalExpat]

Interest rates are so low at the moment so all I hear from those I know who are property owners is that they are soaking themselves in low interest rates.
Also i saw news [https://www.straitstimes.com/business/p ... o-covid-19] that the government will reduce the housing supply, like they did during the GFC which then led to one of the biggest bull runs in SG property.

[PNGMK]

Gahmen has already pulled some site sales. Flippers are going mad trying to flip quick. The resale market is getting saturated by divorce sales apparently. Rentals vacancies are climbing and for all we know we could be in negative interest territory soon. Market is so insanely hard to read but I have been thinking about:

1. Overseas owners returning to Singapore as a safe haven (either PR or other types). That will pull some rentals off the market.
2. Overseas investors buying PR to get into a safe haven (Indonesians etc). They will buy remotely just to land.
3. Record low interest rates driving RE speculation up.
4. Pending shortage of new launches driving launches.
5. Some locals upgrading in case of renew CB or lockdown to a better home.
6. Mortgagee sales (forced) at low end of market.
7. Expats leaving so the expat rental market (which is really the urban fringe - not the TaiTai market) will suffer. That will eventually drive forced sales but some LL may just wait it out or the upgraders may pick these up.

In short I am not sure we are going to see a RE crash just yet.....