Singapore Developers Gearing For Price Slash?

If you’re starting a new family or already are looking at buying a new place, this is almost the best time to do so. Forget about the high prices that you’ve seen and remembered in 2007, 2009 would be one of the better years in a 7 – 10 years recession period retraction time to get a good bargain.

It really all boils down to whether developers have the holding power to wait out and launch at the right time. According to Business Times, this year we would see whether how Deferred Payment Scheme (DPS) will be affecting buyers who hasn’t take up loans from the banks. A year ago, you could take up loan of up to 90% of the property value easily. If you haven’t secure a loan then, you would have difficulty sometimes even getting loan of up to 80%. Now assuming you have secured an 80%, your cash layout would have increased additionally to 10% to make up the difference of what you could have last year.

Weekend Today actually sent a team to developer project launches and tried to ‘purchase’ a number of units to see how much discounts they could get from the developer.

BARELY an hour into the showflat tour, the senior executive of a property consultancy firm, brokering a private condominium, decided it was time to reveal his trump card.

“Don’t say I said it,” he said, almost whispering, as he pushed across the table to us a piece of paper with a blow-by-blow breakdown of his offer. The latest scribbled figure was 15 per cent just beside the previous offer of 11 per cent.

Buyers could also be offerred freebies such as waiver of stamp duty fees and substantial furniture vouchers to even sweeten the deal.

Buyers with Cash

Ah, you’re in luck. With the falling lending rates especially with loan packages that’s packed with Singapore InterBank Offered Rate (SIBOR), you’d be saving quite substantially in the long run of 20 – 30 years of borrowing.

A UBS report says that according to URA data, four recent sub-sales have been transacted at 20 per cent below launch prices.

Two units at Ardmore II were sub-sold for $2,000 per sq ft, compared with the last-transacted price of $2,400 psf. One unit at Scotts Square was sold at $3,050 psf, compared with the last-transacted price of $3,850 psf in the second quarter of last year.

And one unit at Sky @ Eleven was sold at $880 psf, compared with the last transacted price of $1,270 psf in Q2 2007.

Business Times, 9th January 2009

Buying opportunities now are reigning especially in the Core Central Region (CCR). If you’re thinking of upgrading and shifting to a better location, this slump would be a very good time. Some older projects you can look out for in D09 would be Aspen Heights, Valley Park, Mutiara View or Mutiara Crest which is residing around River Valley for a good buy.

Flip through property listings today and start hunting ;)