Daily Briefing: Singapore October home sales rise by 60%; Perpetual debt is the new equity for landlords

And here’s how SMEs can lower their borrowing costs.

Singapore home sales rose 60 percent in October from a month earlier, as developers marketed more projects. Developers sold 546 units last month compared with 341 units in September, according to data released Monday by the Urban Redevelopment Authority. Prices dropped for an eighth consecutive quarter in the three months to the end of September. Read more here.

Singapore landlords are loading up on bonds masked as equity to get around new rules curbing their debt amid a property slump. Real-estate investment trusts issued a record S$700 million ($492 million) of perpetual notes with no set maturity date in 2015 and they’re likely to sell more, according to Fitch Ratings. Find out more here.

Singapore’s SMEs makes up 99% of all enterprises, employ 66% of the workforce and account for 48% of the GDP. SMEs are defined as having revenues of less than $100m and with a staff of less than 200. Singapore has narrowly averted a technical recession. But the PMI is below 50%, indicating a contraction in the manufacturing sector. Read more here.