In his Budget 2014 statement, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said the property cooling measures are working but it is still too early to tweak any of the tightening policies.
"Given the run-up in prices in the last four years, it is too early to start relaxing our measures. The government will continue to monitor the property market in the coming quarters and adjust our measures when necessary.
“We are not engineering a hard landing. But neither are we able to eliminate cycles in the property market, with upswings in prices in some years followed by corrections,” he added.
Mr Tharman explained that the cooling measures are aimed at
moderating property prices so that they do not rise beyond income levels.
He noted that property prices are stabilising while HDB BTO prices have been stable, having been delinked from the resale flat market.
Additional Budget 2014 stories:
800,000 HDB households to get rebates
Government gives further support to property developers
Opinion: Tacking the great income divide
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor at PropertyGuru, wrote this story. To contact him about this or other stories email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
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