A Singaporean developer foresees the country’s housing market crashing in the next 12 months because of oversupply of new homes.
Chris Comer, chief executive officer of Castlewood Group, the developer of the Nikki Beach properties in Asia, warned that the Singaporean housing market would become a renters’ market for a very long time as properties are resold for amounts they were purchased.
While not all analysts share Comer’s not so bright outlook, others cited a forecast by Nomura that over
16,000 new private homes are scheduled to be finished in the next three quarters, almost a seven-fold increase from the 2,408 units completed in Q1 2013 and 6,000 plus more than the 9,853 completed for 2012.
“Supply is likely to outstrip demand and vacancy (and rents) will likely come under more pressure in the coming quarters,” a Nomura report warned.
Hefty discounts in an overheating market
Signs that the Singaporean housing market is overheating include hefty discounts offered by developers to unit buyers and freebies such as gadgets and even cars to entice those with spare money to buy properties, Comer said.
Daiwa analyst David Lum confirmed the forthcoming glut in the city-state’s housing market, with 86,000 private residential units or 31% of existing private stock in the pipeline as of the end of 2012.
Although the 31% is lower than the record-high 45% before the 1997 Asian financial crisis, it is slightly higher than the 29% logged during the 2008 global financial crisis. Besides the rash of private residential homes due for completion and turnover to owners, more public housing projects are also due to hit the property market in 2014-16, Lum said.
Response to voters’ discontent
The flood of housing projects is in response to high rentals that became a source of discontent among Singaporean voters and resulted in the ruling PAP securing only 60% of the votes in 2011, one of the lowest support ratings for a political party in Singapore’s election history.
Due to the glut in housing stock, mass-market home prices would decline by about 18% from end of 2012 until 2015, while the drop would be by 20% for the high-end segment, he predicted.