I can't claim to really know the market that well, but I will say two things having just spent a couple of months looking, seeing prices all over the map but being able to offer on better places for less money - that prices have stabilized and are already showing signs of coming down. And some are down.
One is that your timing is probably a very advantageous one for renewal or bargaining on a new place;
the second is, we just got our new place well below and contrary to what every agent (this time we used four, a practice somewhat and stupidly taboo in this country) was telling us, to what appeared to be the best of their knowledge.
People can only afford to loose money out of kiasu for so long, and the coming market glut is not far away. Take a walk from Mohammed Sultan, round St. Thomas Walk, down Killeny, and around Great World City to see just some of this unoccupied and soon-to-come-on-the-market glut.
What was concerning though, was to learn that there is still an active expat (= rent et al are paid by the company) market* here for some industries (not mine anymore!) and this perpetuates that false impression for many LLs that all foreigners are rich and "expats" .
But as long as the rest of us non-expats allow ourselves to pay up in an artificially-inflated market, the longer this will last.
*And I'd like to know which industries. One agent said she was placing a lot from Deutche Bank, odd given all their recent firings and the sick state of the industry; another mentioned there were many from P&G but now there are no more expats from there; I'm not sure but perhaps Oil & Gas is still strong.
Segue wrote:Anyway, the point of this post is to not try to make any predictions of when or if it will burst (I do think it will, but I know I can't predict when). I've got a contract coming up at the end of 1Q2013 so I'm trying to anticipate any leverage I might have. In a downside market there is typically a lag in downward pricing as nobody wants to accept the reality. As a buyer, nobody will admit to you that the market is soft - the agents and landlord will still act like you need to hurry up and take the offer before the landlord raises the price or someone else tries to snap it up. In these situations, knowledge is power.
So if anybody else has some anecdotal evidence to share that either supports and contradicts my hypothesis that prices are starting to soften, please share with all.