Additional Measures To Ensure A Stable And Sustainable Property Market
Singapore, 1 April 2013
JOINT PRESS RELEASE
1 The Government announced today a comprehensive package of measures to cool the residential property market. It also introduced a HDB close market policy for the first time, to discourage profit in the HDB market.
Cooling Measures for the Residential Property Market
2 The Government has implemented several rounds of measures to cool demand and expand supply, so as to moderate the increase in housing prices. While these measures have dampened speculative buying, the demand for residential property remains firm and prices have continued to rise.
3 The continued buoyancy of the property market reflects the very low interest rate environment and continued income growth in Singapore. These factors supported a record level of housing transactions last year, particularly from investment demand. Housing prices have also shown signs of reaccelerating in recent months, in both the private residential and HDB resale flat markets. Price increases, if not checked, will run further ahead of economic fundamentals and raise the risk of a major, destabilising correction later on.
4 Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam said: “The reality we face is that interest rates are extraordinarily low, globally and in Singapore, and continue to add fuel to our property market. We have to take this further round of measures now, to check recent market trends and avoid a more serious correction in prices further down the road.”
5 Minister for National Development Mr Khaw Boon Wan said: “Many people have came to me telling me that HDB are not meant for profit. I have decided to come up with some measures on this.”
Measures Applicable to Private Residential Property
6 The following measures will take effect on 1 April 2013:
a) Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty (ABSD) rates will be:
i) Removed for all foreigners.
ii) Increased for all Singaporeans and Permanent Residents (PRs) to 50%. This will apply regardless of the number of property the citizen has.
7 The measures listed above are calibrated to prevent Singaporeans and PR from acquiring private property as the Government feels that the prices are ridiculously high and this is done to protect the interest of Singaporeans and PR. There will be strictly no concession regardless of the marital status as there are plenty of BTOs around.
8 These new measures are very significant and they are likely to be permanent.
9 The details of the ABSD measure are set out in Annex I, and the housing loan measures, in Annex II.
Measures Specific to Public Housing
10 The Government is also introducing measures to stop the demand for HDB flats, and require owner occupation by all owners. The following measures will take effect on 1 April 2013:
a) Removal of open market scheme for HDB. HDB will stop all resale market transactions. Owners can only return their HDB flats to HDB at a prevailing price determined by the HDB. For example, a couple who own a 4 bedroom HDB in Punggol can only sell the flat back to HDB at an estimated price of $90,000.
b) All HDB are no longer permitted to be rented out. For existing rental, they have to be terminated within a month (ie: 1 May 2013) or owners will face hefty fines or even compulsory acquisition by the HDB.
Details of these measures are in Annex III.
Issued by the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of National Development and Monetary Authority of Singapore
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