Daily Briefing: Singapore mortgage benchmark rates climb: Possible drop in retail rents in 2016

And sliding prices may force govt to adjust property curbs.

Singapore short-term interest rates used to set mortgages surged to a seven-year high on speculation central bank activity in the currency market is resulting in rising borrowing costs. “The authorities are buying their currencies and selling U.S. dollars,” said Hideo Shimomura, the chief fund investor in Tokyo at Mitsubishi UFJ Kokusai Asset Management. “They are absorbing liquidity from the market. The money market is drying up.” Read more here.

Singapore saw average islandwide rents for first-storey spaces drop by 1.2 percent quarter-on-quarter to around S$30.50 per sq ft in Q4 2015 its third consecutive decline since Q2 2015, according to report by DTZ Southeast Asia. For the whole of 2015, average first-storey rents declined at a faster rate of 5.9 percent compared to the 0.3 percent drop registered in 2014. Find out more here.

Property consultants believe the government may finally be persuaded to tweak some of the cooling measures as home prices are expected to drop further this year, reported Bloomberg. JLL National Director of Research & Consultancy, Ong Teck Hui, expects home prices to fall by as much as eight percent this year, while Knight Frank predicts a three to six percent decline in residential values. Read more here.