http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/arch...wn-40-20131025

Published October 25, 2013

Buying by Chinese, Malaysians, Indonesians, Indians down 40%

By Kalpana Rashiwala [email protected]


MAINLAND Chinese, Malaysians, Indonesians and Indians continued to remain the top four nationalities among the combined pool of foreigners and Singapore permanent residents who bought private homes in the first nine months of this year. Together they accounted for 81.3 per cent of the 4,028 private homes purchased by PRs and foreigners in Jan-Sept 2013, similar to their 80.9 per cent share of the 7,717 private homes that PRs and foreigners picked up in 2012, shows a caveats analysis by property consulting group DTZ.

In the third quarter of this year, the number of units bagged by mainland Chinese, Malaysians and Indonesians each dropped around 43 per cent quarter-on-quarter to 238, 240 and 149 respectively. Indians acquired 36 per cent fewer private homes over the same period, at 71 units in Q3.

In comparison, US buyers, while having a small share, saw their number of private home purchases holding steady at 44 units in Q3, unchanged from Q2.

"US buyers have been less affected by the additional buyer's stamp duty (ABSD) measures compared with other foreign buyer groups. This is because US citizens who are buying their first Singapore residential property are exempt from ABSD, as they are given the same treatment as Singapore citizens under the terms of the US-Singapore free trade agreement. Sentiment among US buyers could have therefore held up, in spite of the new TDSR (total debt servicing ratio) framework," said Lee Lay Keng, head of Singapore research at DTZ.

DTZ's analysis was based on caveats data on the URA Realis system as at Oct 22.