:New rules for BTOapplications have helped genuine public housing buyers:: Mah:

A more ‘balanced’ market

:New rules for BTOapplications have helped genuine public housing buyers:: Mah:

Monday • June 16, 2008


TAN HUI LENG


huileng@mediacorp.com.sg



THE private market may have quietened, but the housing board resale market remains “quite active”, said Minister for National Development Mah Bow Tan.

:“Transactions are still strong — not as strong as six months ago, but still relatively strong,” Mr Mah said, on the sidelines of a community event yesterday.:

:“It’s a real demand, a real market for people to buy a flat to live in, unlike the private market where some people buy to live, some to invest, some for speculation. So long as there are new families being formed and new immigrants coming in, the HDB market will remain a very active one.”

Supply and demand, he added, was now more balanced. “Because of the uncertainty ... people are a bit more cautious,” he said. “I think people realise that there’s adequate supply coming on stream, they don’t have to panic, we’re pushing out more Build-To-Order (BTO) flats. Those who can afford to wait, they’ll wait.”

As for the new rules for flat applicants, the minister was glad that they have had their intended effect.

Fewer applicants have come forward for the two recent projects in Punggol and Sengkang.

Launched last month by the Housing and Development Board (HDB), Compassvale Pearl in Sengkang and Punggol Sapphire attracted 4,050 applications for 1,485 flats — half the number of applications than before the new rules kicked in.

Under the new ruling, a first-time buyer who twice rejects an offer to buy a flat at a Built-To-Order or balloting sales exercise will lose his first-timer priorities for a year.

“The intent is really to encourage people registering for flats to take their applications seriously and, in that sense, the changes had some positive impact. That will ensure that those who really need a flat will be able to get a flat,” said Mr Mah yesterday on the sidelines of a community event.




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$275 for a room at Changi

$275 for a room at Changi

Monday • June 16, 2008

SINGAPORE’S first airport hotel has opened its doors to guests, nearly 30 years after Changi Airport began operations.

The Crowne Plaza Changi Airport has been open for just two weeks, and not all its 320 rooms are ready, but the hotel is already meeting its occupancy target of 75 per cent for the full year.

Room rates start from about US$200 ($275) — just below prices at the premium Orchard Road belt.

But with the city less than a half-hour’s ride away, the need for an airport hotel seems less apparent.

Its management, however, disagrees with this view.

Mr Mark Winterton, the general manager of Crowne Plaza Changi Airport, said: “Location is everything. Business travellers these days are savvy, their time is conserved and they want to get in and get out.

He added: “It may only be 15 to 20 minutes from the city, but people don’t have 15 to 20 minutes these days.”

The hotel is primarily targeted at business travellers and those coming for meetings and conventions.

It is also getting transit passengers, air crew and those doing business nearby such as corporate companies in Changi Business Park, said Mr Winterton.

The hotel is also working with the local authorities to offer a direct check-in system which is likely to be available within the next few months.

One of the biggest challenges that the airport hotel faced was finding staff, as 200 service staff were needed.

After nine months and a gruelling two-day walk-in session which attracted some 1,500 applicants, everyone is finally in place.

And while there were some delays — the hotel’s soft opening had to be pushed from March to May — Mr Winterton said it is par for the course.

The hotel is expected to officially open in September. — Channel NewsAsia




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It's musical chairs for international schools

June 16, 2008

UPFRONT It's musical chairs for international schools

By Jane Ng

WHEN the Canadian International School announced that it had secured a site in Jurong to house students from three of its campuses, a silent cheer went up from some other international schools. They immediately began strategising expansion plans, including the possibility of taking over those campuses at Toh Tuck, Bukit Tinggi Road and Kampong Bahru. This ongoing game of musical chairs has been played among international schools in recent years. Since the spike in the expatriate population in Singapore from 798,000 in 2005 to 875,500 in 2006, popular international schools have been running at full capacity and watching waiting lists lengthen as they seek ways to expand. 'When you're bursting at the seams, you want to quickly find another campus so that you can clear the waiting list and give the students a place to study,' said one principal. Many of the campuses occupy leased sites belonging to the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) or to private owners. The Canadian school's Bukit Tinggi campus, with about 500 students, received at least three enquiries in the past year from other expatriate schools and private firms wanting to start schools. The same went for its Toh Tuck campus, which has 900 students and is leased from the SLA. While the campus may only be vacant from 2010, others see no harm in putting their bid down for it. 'It's important to be watchful for opportunities and get your name into the game quickly. Location is of course paramount, you don't want to have your campuses all over the place,' said Mr Glenn Odland, principal of the Canadian school, whose newest campus opened in Tanjong Katong last year. A tad too late in making enquiries was its neighbour at Bukit Tinggi Road, the German European School. It would have been the perfect solution for the 30-year-old school, which was looking for a second campus to house its primary level children, said principal Gunter Boos, with a tinge of regret. With a total enrolment of 1,075, it is over the capacity of 800 that its lush, green campus off Bukit Timah was built to take. It has also had to keep 65, mostly primary-level pupils, on its waiting list for the past six months. It may have found a solution though, in a disused school campus at Jalan Jurong Kechil, a 10-minute drive away, and will move its primary school - both German and English sections - there next month. Its secondary and kindergarten sections will remain at the current site, which will allow them room to expand. With a total capacity of 600 at the new school, there will be some space for growth when the current 450 pupils start lessons there. This interim solution will remove its waiting list for the next three years but the principal is still on the lookout for a site nearer the existing campus. Another growing international school, the United World College, has already announced plans for a second campus in Tampines to accommodate 2,500 students in 2010. Others are thinking up innovative ways to create more room in their existing schools. It has been almost two years now that the German European School has been running over capacity, so it has borrowed six classrooms, an auditorium and carpark lots from another neighbour, the Institution of Engineers. Given its modest cafeteria, the students' lunch breaks are staggered into three slots to make sure that everyone has a seat for meals. At the Canadian school, timetables are designed to ensure that classrooms are rarely empty. Teachers and students move around for lessons to make the best use of any free classroom. Personal computers have been replaced by laptops which are put on trolleys for use in any classroom. This has proved so successful that there are now six 'mobile computer labs'. The French School, Lycee Francais de Singapour, on the other hand, has already increased its enrolment by 60 per cent over the last four years to its current 1,390 students. To create 26 additional classrooms, it will demolish and rebuild its kindergarten block. The new block will allow the school to take in 2,000 students in 2011. In the interim, the kindergarten and part of the primary school will move to temporary premises. Not many schools are like the Tanglin Trust School at Portsdown Road or the Australian International School at Lorong Chuan, both of which have enough space to expand on site. The Tanglin Trust, with an enrolment of 2,250, wants to expand its senior school, with the total intake expected to hit just below 3,000 in the next five years. The school has just built an additional floor onto its existing senior school to house eight new classrooms and is adding another building to house more senior school facilities that will be ready next year. The Australian school, meanwhile, is furnishing its new $45 million junior school campus, built next to its existing campus in Lorong Chuan. It will welcome about 800 pupils in July. janeng@sph.com.sg

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Aussie properties offer lower prices, higher returns

June 15, 2008

property Aussie properties offer lower prices, higher returns

Values in major cities are set to double every seven to 10 years on average

By Chia Yan Min

More Singaporeans are going Down Under in search of viable property investments - and for good reasons. Singaporeans are cashing in on a market where prices of equivalent properties are cheaper compared to l options here, and returns on investment are high. The average capital growth rate in major Australian cities is about 7.7 per cent, meaning properties double in value every seven to 10 years on average. Rent yields in Australia are about 5 per cent on average. Property values in major cities such as Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane are also set to increase as they are currently facing net immigration, rising demand for housing and a housing supply shortage. 'Australia is not building houses fast enough and unless locals start living in tents, demand is set to continue rising,' said Mr Sean Parker, director of sales and marketing at JL Property Group. Property agents are especially optimistic about growth in the Sydney market. Mr Parker described Sydney as a market 'primed for growth'. Rents in Sydney rose 24 per cent last year due to a supply shortage. Rent yields in Sydney are currently at an average of 4 to 6 per cent. Melbourne, another popular location, is seeing rapid property price escalations, with prices increasing by as much as 30 per cent over the past 18 months, driven largely by the owner-occupier market. This is due to the location of several reputable universities in Melbourne. Despite this, properties located a relatively short 4 km away from Melbourne's central business district are obtainable for an affordable A$500 to A$600 per sq ft, or about S$650 to S$780 per sq ft. Investors looking for an alternative to these bustling cities might consider the more laid-back Gold Coast in Queensland, one of Australia's major tourist attractions. While average rent yields are similar to the rest of Australia at about 5 per cent, rental prices escalate during peak tourist periods, for example during the Formula One season, said Mr Jeremy Thoo, general manager of Austpac International. 'Returns on properties in the Gold Coast are more cyclical and volatile compared to cities like Sydney and Melbourne, where renters will lease the property for longer periods. Tourists usually lease for about a week at most,' he said. Recent high-profile luxury projects in the Gold Coast include the Circle On Cavill, a waterfront project launched last year by the Sunland Group. Touted as 'Australia's tallest twin towers', prices start from A$499 per sq ft, or about S$649 per sq ft. Mr Thoo advises investors to consider whether they feel capital growth or returns on investment is more important before making a choice. 'Cities like Sydney are the equivalent of districts nine and 10 here,' he said. 'Properties there appreciate in value rapidly, but might have lower rent yields due to their higher cost. However, a property in a more suburban area like Darwin can have very high returns.' Mr Thoo points out that the Australian market offers investment options such as serviced apartments, which are not available locally. As these are often rented to hotel chains, they offer higher returns than typical residential apartments. He also notes that apartments tend to have higher rent yields of about 4 to 6 per cent, compared to houses which have yields of 2 to 4 per cent. 'Apartments are a more hassle-free investment,' he said. One challenge Singaporeans face when investing in Australia is knowing who to trust. Mr Parker said buyers should look for property marketeers with a positive track record. chiaym@sph.com.sg

Choose the right mortgage deal to save more

June 15, 2008

small change Choose the right mortgage deal to save more

By Grace Ng Finance Correspondent

You are what you write - if you are a journalist. After a while, friends start to label you by certain stories you write. Last week, one blithely introduced me to his mother as 'Grace Ng, the Transparent Mortgage Rates Reporter'. That bizarre introduction unleashed a torrent of questions from Mrs X, who was about to refinance her fixed-rate mortgage. She was counting on the discomfited Miss TMRR (yours truly) to tell her exactly why 'everyone says a transparent-rate mortgage is the cheapest'. The encounter made me realise that even some financially savvy Singaporeans might not be clued in on how to make the most of mortgage packages as interest rates change. When rates head south, you can benefit by taking up a mortgage linked to publicly available rates such as the Singapore Interbank Offered Rate (Sibor). This benchmark rate is used by banks to determine mortgage rates for home loans, as it is the cost at which banks borrow funds from each other. Banks such as United Overseas Bank, OCBC and Standard Chartered offer packages with rates linked to the Singapore Swap Offer Rate (SOR), which is made up of the Sibor plus lending costs incurred by the banks. The three-month Sibor has been falling steadily, dropping from over 3.5 per cent last year to as low as 1.24 per cent in late April this year. This means some customers have been enjoying rates of about 2 per cent for the first few months of their loans. Not surprisingly, many customers have either taken up new Sibor-linked packages, or refinanced from a fixed-rate package to a Sibor-linked one. But if rates are high and look set to climb higher, it is best to lock in a rate through either a fixed-rate mortgage for a few years, or at least a rate linked to the 12-month Sibor, which is fixed for a full year. The three-month Sibor was gyrating within a tight range but is now climbing to about 1.43 per cent. The 12-month Sibor has moved up sharply to 2 per cent. Singapore rates track the United States Federal Reserve rate, currently at 2 per cent. But the latter looks unlikely to climb sharply in coming weeks. Opinions are divided over whether the Fed will raise rates to curb inflation or lower them further to stave off a deep recession in the US. So what do you do when rates in both the US and Singapore are relatively flat, the local property market is softening and the economic outlook is uncertain? It depends on the type of customer you are. New home-buyers will face higher fixed-rate mortgage prices. This is because local and foreign banks alike jacked up their rates last week to an average of about 3.7 per cent annually for three years. This raises the cost of locking in mortgage rates for several years. It also makes packages with rates linked to the Sibor, which is still relatively low, look more attractive than fixed-rate loans. If you are an existing customer with a loan whose value is less than $300,000 and you switch to a lower-rate loan, penalties such as cancellation fees could wipe out any savings from refinancing, notes Mr Bryan Ong of mortgage consultancy bcgroup.com.sg. But if your loan value far exceeds $300,000, you could still save a great deal by sticking with a Sibor-linked package until the three-month Sibor exceeds 2.5 per cent to 3 per cent, he added. Many will remember that, just a year ago, such packages were actually more costly than fixed-rate ones. In June last year, for instance, when the 12-month Sibor was 2.56 per cent, DBS' package stipulated 3.81 per cent for the first year, which factored in a mark-up of 1.25 per cent added by DBS. Those looking to sell their investment properties in the coming months might want to keep to a three-month SOR loan until they offload their properties, as shorter-term rates are currently lower than long-term ones. But for those taking a wait-and-see attitude, it might make more sense to take up a 12-month Sibor-linked package, so as to lock in the current low rates. That could give you some peace of mind until the middle of next year, when it will probably be clearer just how bad the economic slowdown in the US and Asia is likely to get, and where rates are headed. Banks are now differentiating their products by varying the lock-in periods and the penalty fees for cancelling a package within the first year. Some banks offer rates as low as 1 per cent of the total loan quantum, while others charge up to 2 per cent. Others, like Standard Chartered, have introduced interesting features such as a guarantee that the three-month SOR will not exceed the 2.98 per cent annual rate for the first two years. Singaporeans like Mrs X will always be quick to leap after the cheapest rate in town. But rather than just eye-balling the current teaser prices, customers should also scrutinise the general rate trends, as well as cancellation penalties, to make sure they get the best package, be it a fixed or floating rate mortgage, all year round. graceng@sph.com.sg

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