What's Your home worth today?
What's Your home worth today?
The decline in residential property prices may not have run its course,but interest from buyers is building up fast.Turn to our City & Country pullout for which properties are grabbing buyers' attention,and how to use online resources to track the market.
http://www.kf.sg/theedge/t_p1.jpg
As least 10,000 new condominium units are expected to be completed this year, putting more pressure on property prices and rentals. Trying to price a property — either to sell or to rent — has proven to be difficult. Where do people turn to for information? Property websites, it seems. FULL STORY HERE
EVERYONE IS WATCHING the property market closely — some with trepidation as they see their home prices nosedive, and others with glee as they sense that the opportunity for buying a property at a reasonable price, or even a “fire-sale”, is just around the corner.
Besides the global financial crisis-turned-recession, the impending supply is also weighing down the housing market in Singapore. According to URA’s 4Q2008 projection, an average of 11,626 new private housing units will be scheduled for completion annually from 2009 to 2013. That figure is 34% higher than the annual average of 8,671 units in the past decade from 1998 to 2008, notes Chua Chor Hoon, senior director of research for DTZ, in a report last Monday. She reckons it could be an “over-projection” of at least 21%, as proven in the last couple of crises when developers adjusted supply according to demand.
That’s of little consolation to homeowners as they are still faced with an estimated 10,000 new apartments and condominiums that will enter the market this year. “These would have downward pressure on rentals and prices,” says Chua. Most of those scheduled for completion this year are already sold. There are still 44,661 unsold private residential units as at end-2008, however, and Chua estimates that, based on a 10-year average annual take-up rate of 8,814 units, it will still take 51/2 years to clear the entire stock.
The looming new supply and uncertainty as to how much further prices will fall has already resulted in transaction volume drying up. In 4Q2008, only 419 new homes were sold. Another 965 homes changed hands in the resale market, while 203 were sub-sales (sale of new properties under construction in the secondary market).
Last year’s new-home sales, at under 4,300 units, were less than one-third of 2007’s figure of 14,811 units. Meanwhile, the overall private residential price index slipped 4.7% last year compared with a 31.2% hike in 2007.
Rise in traffic even as transactions dwindle With a recession in full swing, house prices deflating and news of people losing jobs announced almost daily, the mood in the property market is subdued. As such, one would expect visitorship to property websites to fall. On the contrary, they are reporting a surge in traffic.
http://www.kf.sg/theedge/t_p2.jpg
http://www.kf.sg/theedge/t_p3.jpg
Property websites have evolved
PROPERTY AGENTS’ SURVIVAL MARKETING TOOLS
While the likes of iProperty.com.sg and PropertyGuru.com.sg are started by Internet entrepreneurs, some have been spearheaded by property consulting firms. Knight Frank, for one, launched its VirtualHomes.sg website on Oct 13 last year.
http://www.kf.sg/theedge/t_p4.jpg
Koe says the two questions most frequently posed to property agents are: ‘Is this a good time to buy?’ and ‘Have property prices bottomed yet?’ The most common parting phrase at showflats these days is: ‘Let us know when there is a price reduction.’
What’s clear to marketing agents is that, with consumers increasingly Net-savvy, they no longer depend on agents for market information. “These days, consumers want choice, control and comparability, and they can get the information directly on the Internet,” notes Peter Ow, executive director of residential marketing at Knight Frank. “What we’re trying to do is to help our agents survive in the future. They can’t just go around with a stack of brochures anymore. By using a condo search engine like ours, the possibilities for them are limitless.”
From Feb 15, VirtualHomes.sg will also feature Knight Frank’s agents’ home listings for sale or rent. What Knight Frank has discovered is that 35% to 45% of its agents’ deals originate from the website, compared with 20% before the site was launched.
Melhuish says PropertyGuru.com. sg has 5,000 real estate agents who are members and a total of 30,000 property listings on the site. iProperty.com.sg has a total of 5,000 real estate agents in Southeast Asia, of which 2,000 are Singapore agents, says Grove. It has 25,000 properties listed on its site.
Knight Frank’s team of four full-time staff worked hard over the last two years to compile 2,791 condo projects in Singapore, featuring existing projects, those that have been officially launched, and those that have been sold en bloc on its VirtualHomes.sg website. Its distinctive feature is its “720-degree virtual tour” of each project and its surroundings. It also offers a suite of tools such as Google Maps, floor plans and price trend charts for the last 12 months. The site is particularly useful for those who live outside Singapore and are looking for information about the local property market, notes Tony Koe, general manager of Knight Frank’s KF Property Network.
.
