If Wd40 wasn’t enough to quiet the squeak, allow me to illubricate further. In fact, let me just come out and say it: there is no eminent crash coming for the Singapore property market in the next year. If anything, prices will go higher.madasahattersley wrote: ↑Wed, 21 Jul 2021 12:49 pmI think Singapore residential property prices are ridiculously inflated already based on;
1) Extremely poor rental returns already (a $2m condo will get approx $40k in gross rent PA - even worse for landed properties)
2) A huge number of empty units with landlords unwilling to negotiate
3) The demographic paying most of the rent on private condos and houses (i.e. affluent foreigners) fleeing Singapore at an unprecedented rate
We've just had to sign a new lease which is annoying because I think it's clear that the market is going to crash very hard in the next year.
Prices might seem inflated if you compare with the outside world — Singapore is not the outside world, this is one of the most densely populated dots on the world map, one with a unique value proposition unmatched in this part of the world… combined with a culture that has an almost embarrassing fetish for investing in properties (ahem, the cooling measures are there for a reason). Adding to that you’ve got very carefully calibrated government controls on release of land for development.
Rental returns have always been poor, even negative at times during my 24 years living here. Many property owners here have deep pockets and extreme holding power, this wasn’t as much the case back during the Asian crisis in 1997-1998, that is when we actually saw what could be deemed a genuine property crash (although, even back then, properties never got super cheap) that extended into the early/mid 2000’s… lessons were learnt and we saw a completely different situation in the crisis of 2008, only a relatively small and brief dip in prices because buyers now had the holding power, and today it’s even stronger. Call it hard headed, but owners here are very willing let the unit go empty before accepting cheap rent or a low price. You’d need a whole lot more crisis than what we have on the radar screen today before we will see a genuine crash in property prices here.