Despite several rounds of property cooling measures, home prices in Singapore are still rising fast, according to a Knight Frank report.
Prices of private non-landed homes in Singapore grew by 9.3 percent on an annual basis, representing the ninth highest growth in the world during Q2 2018, according to Knight Frank’s Global House Price Index.
The city-state and Hong Kong were also the only cities in Asia that made it to the top 10, with the latter recording a 15.9 percent year-on-year jump in private home prices in the second quarter.
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However, the consultancy noted that the governments of Singapore and Hong Kong recently introduced property cooling measures that negatively impacted prices.
“All eyes are on Hong Kong, Singapore and New Zealand where new property regulations have been introduced in the last three months,” said Kate Everett-Allen, head of international residential research at Knight Frank.
On 6 July 2018, the Singapore authorities reduced the Loan-to-Value (LTV) ratio for residential mortgages and increased the Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty (ABSD) in a bid to control the growth in private condo prices.
Meanwhile, Knight Frank’s Global House Price Index edged up by 4.7 percent year-on-year during the second quarter. Only seven of the 57 countries tracked by the consultancy saw declining prices over the 12 months to June 2018. Notably, Central and Eastern European nations performed strongly.
The three markets that posted the highest growth in private residential prices were Latvia (13.7 percent), Hong Kong (15.9 percent) and Malta (16.9 percent), which topped the index for the first time.
“Our analysis shows that whilst fewer markets are seeing a decline in house prices, where prices are rising, they are rising at a more moderate pace,” noted Everett-Allen.
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Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this or other stories, email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
