The property market is rife with speculation on why the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) is requiring property agents marketing en bloc sales to submit detailed information on the tender results, reported the Business Times.
One camp believes URA will use the information gathered to craft the Government Land Sales (GLS) Programme for the first half of 2018 in order that it will be aligned with what is happening in the private sector land supply and eventually avoid an oversupply of private homes.
“This could reveal, for instance, how hungry developers are – whether it is just one or two bidders who are bidding bullishly or if the sentiment is shared by a bigger pool of players,” said CBRE Research head of Singapore and South-east Asia Desmond Sim.
“As more en bloc sites are sold, the URA can track whether developers’ appetite for land is starting to be satisfied, such as whether some of them stop participating in tenders after a while.”
“With the data it gathers, the URA may also spatially plot where the highest demand for land is, so it can tailor the GLS supply to better suit the market’s requirements.”
Another quarter believes the government is monitoring the en bloc sales sector, with a view to introducing cooling measures if the market gets out of control.
Meanwhile, the URA explained that the agency is “collecting relevant market data such as on en bloc sales for internal statistical purposes”.
Notably, the URA is asking agents to submit information on bid prices as well as the bidders’ name within two working days from the award of the site. In the event of a consortium, the agents are required to provide the name of all the members of the consortium. The names of all bidders should also be provided even when the site is not awarded.
This article was edited by Keshia Faculin.
