REHDA says, ‘Waive stamp duty’ to support property market

Recently, we read about the view of South East Asia’s largest developer that Singapore government is unlikely to lift cooling measures for at least one more year. Read here: Cooling measures in Singapore – Capitaland Ltd  Remember, the main reason for cooling measure is to stop property prices from rising indiscriminately due to speculative activities. Thus, if this pressure is off, should the cooling measures be slowly lifted? Well one thing is sure, the number of transactions have dropped. The total value of transactions have also dropped. Read here:  Property transactions and price, both dropping  Should the cooling measures be lifted then?  The following would be the view of Real Estate Housing (REHDA). The full article here:  REHDA asks government to rejuvenate property sector
It’s national treasurer and REHDA Institute Trustee Datuk Mustaza Mohamad proposed that government should waive the stamp duty because there is already GST for commercial properties. Property prices should be made cheaper. He also shared, “We want the government to increase infrastructure projects too.” He also said that it is important to safeguard the health of the property sector in the country. The reason is because despite the property market being quite small but this sector would be affecting (some) 200 related economic sectors including the construction sector, manufacturing sector, services sectors (lawyers, engineers, financial services, insurance and etc.).  Full article here. 
I personally think the transactions continue to reflect the market demands with a pessimistic view. I have many friends who are still telling me that they want to buy. In all the property events that I go to, the crowd is still huge and many seems to be taking down notes. However, it’s not easy for them to escape the market view that ‘worse may yet to come’ or even ‘property prices may still fall further.’ This is a recent article about unsold residential units in the market which has actually increased a lot. If we only waive the stamp duty as a measure, we may not be attracting only those who need a home to buy. Perhaps a more comprehensive proposal can be proposed whereby whatever is done would be tweaked towards those who REALLY need a home instead. I am an investor too but I wish for the market to be filled with more genuine buyers and not just the speculators. Happy getting ready if the stamp duty is really waived in the near future.
written on 28 Feb 2017
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