URA's removal of some price information puts data transparency in focus

Thu, Nov 12, 2020

Nisha Ramchandani

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/opi...rency-in-focus

THE removal of certain pricing data linked to home buying by foreigners from an Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) platform has highlighted the importance of data transparency.

In October, the URA launched a revamped version of its subscription-based Real Estate Information System (Realis) - which provides detailed data on Singapore's property market - adding some new functions but removing others. Additions include fresh search filters which provide more details for residential and commercial sales transactions, such as block number, level and unit number.

At the same time, other functions were stripped out, noticeably one that allowed caveats by nationality to be analysed against price range or against unit price range.

In short, the function showed the buying preferences of specific nationalities in terms of quantum and in per square foot in a given time period or locality. This data is not available elsewhere, which suggests that analysts now would have to rely solely on on-the-ground checks.

To be sure, other variables still remain intact on Realis which allow for transactions by nationality to be analysed against factors such as postal district, tenure and type of sale.

Also missing is the ability to examine data on stock for office and retail spaces by sub-zones, as opposed to broader variables such as planning region and postal district which remain.

The removal of the nationality/price function came as a surprise to analysts, who see it as a useful dataset to study the purchasing patterns of foreign buyers. Developers and real estate agencies can also use such data to garner insights on how much foreign buyers were paying and in turn be more targeted in their marketing approach.

Likewise, access to official data also helps prospective buyers make informed decisions. It could give a buyer a better sense of purchasing trends instead of having to rely solely on anecdotal evidence or property agents for information.

All this comes in a year where Singapore's property market has proven fairly resilient even as a global pandemic has tipped the economy into a recession. Uncertainties around Covid-19 have sent analysts scrambling to revise projections for private home prices for 2020 - first downwards as a 10-week long "circuit breaker" dented sales and then upwards as prices surprised on the upside.

For analysts, the availability of data is useful for research as it provides a more holistic picture of the local property market. This in turn allows market observers to better understand emerging trends and forecast accordingly.

The URA's stance is that it excluded a small number of data sets from the enhanced Realis owing to very low usage rates following a consultation with key users such as property data analysts and consultants. To be fair, the URA has also said that it will continue to review data functions and their usage in line with user feedback as part of regular updates to Realis. It appears that the URA may already be starting efforts to reach out to gather feedback.

Still, usage rates of data sets alone aren't necessarily a good indicator of reach. Consultants, analysts and academics who regularly pull data from Realis include them in research reports which could be circulated to thousands, including the media which then reproduces these insights in articles. And while certain data may not be extracted daily or regularly, it could eventually come in handy for quarterly or even annual reports, one analyst pointed out.

After all, in an age where data is king and data analytics is seen as the way forward, there should be more of it, not less.