Source: Straits Times

A top cop will help helm the new Council for Estate Agencies (CEA) – a regulatory body which is tasked to regulate the property agents. Mr Soh Kee Hean, director of the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) since 2005, will be seconded to the Ministry of National Development (MND) to take up the position of deputy executive director (designate) of the CEA. The new statutory board will be formed later this year and will take over the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore’s (Iras) role in licensing real estate agencies and their agents. CEA will have the power to investigate consumer complaints against housing agents and agencies, and will have the authority to mete out penalties, such as suspensions and fines. Rogue housing agents have plagued the property market of late, with the Consumers Association of Singapore (Case) receiving an average of over 1,000 complaints a year. In the first four months of this year, Case received 358 complaints. Last year, 1,079 cases were brought to its attention, while the figure was 1,100 in 2008. Complaints ranged from agents failing to give proper advice and using misleading sales tactics, to the non-honouring of agreements. There were other questionable practices, such as agents taking commissions from both buyers and sellers of flats.

There are about 25,000 real estate agents and 1,700 agencies in Singapore. When contacted, local real estate companies welcomed the news. ERA Asia-Pacific associate director Eugene Lim felt that Mr Soh’s new appointment will benefit the industry, by weeding out the crooks. He said that as ‘Mr Soh comes from a background dealing with corrupt practices’, he believed the intention was to tackle the problem of ‘shady agents’.Likewise, PropNex chief executive Mohamed Ismail felt that this move showed the determination of the MND in ensuring that the new council ‘will work effectively in upgrading the professionalism of the real estate industry’.

Mr Soh, a former deputy director of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) as well as a former commander of the Geylang Police Division, will be replaced by Mr Eric Tan Chong Sian. Mr Tan, the commissioner of the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA), will relinquish his current position tomorrow and will take office as CPIB director on Oct 1. When contacted, both Mr Soh and Mr Tan declined to comment as they have yet to take up their new roles. Taking over Mr Tan will be Mr Clarence Yeo Gek Leong, the current deputy commissioner (operations) of ICA.

Source: Channel NewsAsia

Prices of resale HDB flats went up for the fifth consecutive quarter to surpass the 1996 peak by nearly 18%.

HDB’s flash estimate for the second quarter showed the Resale Price Index (RPI) rise 3.8% on-quarter to 160.9, surpassing the 1996 peak of 136.9 points.

Some analysts said the second quarter tends to see the strongest activity as many home buyers leave their flat purchases till after the Lunar New Year.

But others didn’t expect resale prices to rise so quickly, because of the government’s aggressive launch of new flats this year.

The government on Wednesday announced its single largest launch of HDB flats and said if demand continues it will add more units for sale, bringing the total to 16,000 for the whole of this year.

Analysts said this will help assure home buyers there are enough flats to go around, and will in the long-term, moderate prices of resale flats.

But over the next few months, they do not expect any let-up either in resale demand or price.

Nicholas Mak, real estate lecturer at Ngee Ann Polytechnic, said: “In the HDB market, although the slowdown might be more in terms of the Cash Over Valuation, or the seller’s expectations, the buyers, I think, are fairly bullish because in a way, the HDB public housing market forms the very base, the cheapest form of housing to anyone in Singapore.”

Furthermore, analysts said mass market condominiums are still out of the reach of most buyers.

Despite a slowdown in sales in recent months, private home prices have remained firm, increasing at 5.2 percent in the second quarter.

This is slightly smaller than the 5.6 percent rise in the first three months of this year.

It is also one of the smallest rate of increases in the last 12 months.

ERA Asia Pacific’s Associate Director Eugene Lim added that developers “are not likely to cut prices to move sales, as most of them have strong balance sheets.”

Chris Koh, Director of Dennis Wee Group, estimated that private home transactions have gone down by about 20 percent in recent months.

He said: “You speak to some of us who do private property transactions, we will tell you, yeah, the market is correcting a bit.

“We’re not seeing a steep rise in prices anymore for the private market. Instead private property prices have only inched one, two percent up and you can see that it’s more or less starting to plateau out.

“If that happens maybe the HDB market will mirror it….but at the moment I’m not seeing that in the HDB market yet.”

Overall, market watchers expect resale prices for 2010 to increase by 8 to 15 percent.

On Thursday, the government announced three more land parcels for sale, which could yield about 1,300 residential units, including 460 Executive Condominium flats.

The Urban Redevelopment Authority will also launch another three sites later this month, which will include sites for residential purposes.

In total, the Government Land Sales (GLS) Programme for the second half of 2010 comprises 27 residential sites and four mixed-use sites where private residential housing can be built.

The total potential supply of 13,905 private residential units is the highest potential supply quantum from any half yearly GLS Programme since the Confirmed List/Reserve List system started in the second half of 2001.

Source: Channel NewsAsia

The Housing and Development Board’s (HDB) latest Build-To-Order (BTO) project, Waterway Terraces in Punggol, is six times oversubscribed, just a day after applications opened.

Five-room flats are the most popular, receiving almost 1,800 applications for the 306 available flats.

Four-room and three-room units are also oversubscribed.

Four-room flats received 2,461 applications for 306 units, while 268 applications were received for the 178 available three-room units.

Waterway Terraces is Singapore’s first waterfront public housing project.

Industry watchers said they expect the project to be more than 10 times oversubscribed.

HDB’s other new BTO projects – Rivervale Arc and Fernvale Foilage, both in Sengkang – were less popular.

About half of the units in these projects received applications.

Source: Channel News Asia

The Housing and Development Board (HDB) has committed another $1 billion to upgrade eight towns.

Deputy PM and Minister for Home Affairs, Wong Kan Seng announced this at the HDB’s 50th anniversary celebrations on Sunday.

The eight towns are in the Central zone, namely Ang Mo Kio, Toa Payoh, Bishan, Serangoon, Kallang/Whampoa, Queesntown, Bukit Merah and Central.

This is on top of $3.4 billion spent since 1990, which has benefited some 150,000 households there.

Mr Wong said the additional spending would be used to upgrade the living environment of another 85,000 households, through programmes like Home Improvement and Lift Upgrading.

“I can assure you that as long as we have the financial resources, the government will continue to expand upgrading programmes to all other households eligible,” said Mr Wong.

Source: HDB InfoWEB

HDB’s flash estimate of the 1st Quarter 2010 Resale Price Index (RPI) is 154.9, an increase of 2.7% over 4th Quarter 2009, compared to the 3.9% increase from 3rd Quarter to 4th Quarter 2009. The RPI has risen by 3.5% per annum on average between 1st Quarter 2000 and 1st Quarter 2010.

Resale volume has trended downwards. The estimated number of resale transactions for the full quarter is about 8,500. This is about 5% lower compared to 4th Quarter 2009 which registered 8,926 cases.

The median Cash-Over Valuation (COV) amount for 1st Quarter 2010 (up to 21st March 2010) has stabilised at $25,000, an increase of $1,000 over 4th Quarter 2009. In contrast, the median COV doubled from $12,000 in 3rd Quarter 2009 to $24,000 in 4th Quarter 2009.

The RPI for the full quarter and more detailed public housing data for 1st Quarter 2010 will be released on 23 April 2010.

Update 23 April 2010. RPI Qtr 01 2010 is 155.0