Another new air con installed..
Another round of cooling measures announced..
Instead of going through the details, I’ll talk about directly who’s going to be impacted the most.
1A) Condo owners planning to downgrade to hdb resale (below 55 years old)
If you are currently in midst of selling your condo and you see this news, please pay attention. You may need more than just the usual extension of stay if you’re shifting into a resale hdb.
If you have already issued out the otp, hurry up and quickly ask the buyer for another renegotiation if possible before the buyer exercised.
If you have already sold, please try to appeal to hdb to allow you to but without the wait out period of 15 months, subject to hdb approval on a case by case basis.
1B) Potential enbloc owners who want to consider downgrade to hdb resale
If there is a large numbers of people who are worried about getting a replacement home, they may vote against an enbloc.
The enbloc process official completion doesn’t count when the deal is on. It is usually 1 to 1.5 years later.
If the owners are worried that they can’t buy a resale hdb after their enbloc, they may think of getting a replacement home from the private market.
Which also means that they either want a higher asking price for their enbloc project or they vote against getting enbloc
2) Selling a high price hdb
If you are aiming to sell to a rich buyer who may have recently downgraded from their condo or landed, sorry your pool of buyers have disappeared overnight. Unless it’s a retiree, more than 55 years old.
You can now only target rich PRs and 55 years old or older private downgraders. Please inform your agent to use more traditional marketing outreach.
The market will enter into a ‘wait & see’ phase for the next 3-6 months. Don’t be too pressurized to lower down your price if you have already priced it correctly. If you’re still thinking of breaking the record high, maybe can reconsider your ambition a bit.
3) Borderline loans private property buyers
If you calculate your loan just nicely to the dollar & cent for a $1.5m purchase, maybe your new budget should be for a $1.425m purchase.
You may need to save up a few more months to top up the difference if your target property price is not moving, most sellers are unlikely to drop price drastically.
If you have a nice boss, maybe you can ask for a salary increase so that you can still buy your property. The new calculation will be based on a stricter loan assessment.
4) Lower income buyers who are using hdb loan to buy resale hdb
Take note that the max loan now is reduce to 80%, please make sure that you have sufficient funds on hand to cover the downpayment.
If you’re using private bank loans, it’s still the same at 75%.
Please calculate properly how much you have on hand to pay off the hdb fees, stamp duty, etc to work out the accurate budget.
If you already have a pre-approved HLE before 30 Sep, take note you only have a 6 months window, check carefully when does the existing HLE expire and make your move quickly if you know that you will be affected by the new ruling.
5) Landlords & multiple properties owners
Please continue to enjoy & take advantage of the current moment. The current short supply situation is only temporary. It’s not going to be permanent.
If you have rental increased from $3000 to $5500, please take note that this is not permanent. Save up the excess while you can.
There will be another pool of tenants coming because of this new ruling, condo sellers transiting to hdb resale will come to rent from you.
You may want to relook into poor performing properties and readjust your portfolio.
6) Developers who are running low on their land banks
The most challenging part is to bid at the right price where you still can win the plot of land and at the same time achieve a decent profit margin when the project is ready to launch
With the latest measures, a lot of the borderline mass market condo buyers’ affordability will be affected by an average of 5% downwards.
Which means that the price $psf must be balance out properly to make sure majority of the buyers are still being able to afford after the new measures are in place.
Also, to be extra conservative when it comes to selecting enbloc projects to go for.
