If you never knew, besides being an award-winning blogger and a nail salon owner, I am also a property agent with Propnex. Here are five things to know about real estate in our country.
1. 80% of the Housing in Singapore are own by (HDB) Housing Development Board which belongs to Singapore Government.
Remaining 20% are private condominiums and landed properties.
Private Condominiums are built by private developer who bid and bought the land from the government.
Condominiums are usually a gated compound with facilities like swimming pool, gym, club house, sauna, steam room, BBQ pit, tennis court...etc.
Landed Properties amounts to only about 3 % of Singapore's properties as land is very scarce in Singapore.
2. HDB prices doubled since 2007 - 2014.
About shows the HDB Property Price Index Graph over the years. If you have bought a flat back in 2007. Congrats! The price of your property has doubled. From the HDB Property Price Index Graph above you can see that the prices are starting to fall.
Perhaps now is the time you could consider selling and cashing in your profits?
3. Invest in Residential or Commercial Property?
At this moment, it probably make more sense to invest in commercial properties in Singapore because of the Additional Buyer's Stamp Duty (ABSD). It means you will have to pay additional tax when you purchase a residential property. If you are a Singaporean buying your first home then you are exempted from this.
ABSD only applies to Residential Properties but not Commercial properties. So it makes more sense to get Commercial Properties as an investment. Commercial properties are also in high demand because of the growing population and current low supply.
4. Jurong could potentially be second CBD
Just look at the transformation that is going to happen in Jurong with the Lake District, new apartments, hospitals, hotels, shopping centres and offices. There are so many new exciting plans for the west of Singapore. I am not surprise that Jurong is becoming the second Central Business District of Singapore.
Whether it is leisure or work. Jurong has becoming more and more like the CBD area. No wonder the property prices in Jurong are getting more expensive and that demand has become higher.
Hurray for the westerners of Singapore.
5. Singapore Population Density is higher than Hong Kong
HONG KONG 6,815 residents/SQKM
SINGAPORE 7948 residents/SQKM
Hong Kong as one of the countries with the highest population density in the world. To a large extent, that is absolutely true. Based on their population of 7,182,724 (July 2013 estimate) and their land size of 1,054 square kilometres (sq. km), the population density works out to be 6,815 residents per sq. km!
However, did you know that Singapore has a much higher population density?
Our 5,460,302 strong population is packed into a mere 687 sq. km land size which means that for every square kilometre, there are 7,948 people! Based on worldwide statistics, Singapore is currently ranked the third most densely populated country in the world, followed by Hong Kong at a close fourth. The top spot for population density goes to Macau with 20,069 residents for every square kilometre.
It is no wonder that the Singapore Government has ongoing plans to increase land size via reclamation to avoid claiming the crown from Macau. Land scarcity is a very real problem for Singapore which explains the ever-increasing land costs and property prices which are driven by pent up demand.
