Why analyst thinks it's premature to lift Singapore property curbs

Developers unlikely to lower prices.

According to Savills, against this price drop, there have been suggestions from the industry to fine-tune or lift some of the cooling measures in order to reduce the risk of impairing market sentiment.

Savills, however, believes it maybe premature for any such actions to be taken, as many mass-market and mid-tier projects are in the hands of financially strong developers who are unlikely to lower prices below comparable benchmarks just to clear their stock.

Here's more:

According to the URA, the quarterly price index for private residential properties dipped 0.9% in Q4/2013, registering the first decline since Q1/2012. By market segment, prices of non-landed private residential properties dropped in the CCR (2.1%) and OCR (1.0%). Prices in the RCR, however, inched up marginally by 0.8%.

The average price of high-end non-landed homes tracked by Savills continued to soften by 0.8% QoQ to S$2,378 per sq ft, the third consecutive quarterly decline since Q1/2013.