Singaporeans are not feeling cooling measures' impact on affordability: survey

Houses are still very costly.

According to the latest PropertyGuru Property Sentiment Survey, while most survey respondents agree with the government’s latest attempts to further curb price increase across property categories, Singaporeans still feel that the latest cooling measures installed in H1 2013 has little impact in addressing overall property affordability issues.

In short, home prices in Singapore are still considered expensive.

According to the latest survey findings, negative public sentiment towards perceived government effort peaked at 66% this quarter.

This increase has been rising at a faster rate in each quarter after the respective cooling measures were announced – 13% in Q2 following the imposition of a higher Additional Buyers’ Stamp Duty (ABSD) in January 2013 and 6% in Q3 in response to the introduction of the new framework for Total Debt Servicing Ratio (TDSR) in June 2013.

Perception is felt most acutely among property upgraders, in particular among those who currently stay in 1-5 room flats (47%) and HDB households earning less than $10,000 a month (68%). This cluster of aspirational home owners who intend to purchase private property or a bigger HDB unit in the near future are looking to the government to rein in high sale prices.