Singapore’s Housing Party Is On. Watch the Clock
The pieces are in place for a residential property surge, but the city-state likes to pop speculative bubbles before they get too big.
Singapore has taken property-cooling measures nine times since 2008.
Photographer: Roslan Rahman/AFP/Getty
From Munich to Frankfurt, and Toronto to Hong Kong, housing bubbles have either grown bigger through the pandemic or refused to deflate. Singapore’s property, though, is in a sweet spot of affordability, making it a likely target of an investment frenzy.
But dispel any illusions: The city-state has a habit of breaking up speculative parties long before they pop. That doesn’t mean that everyone has to go home just yet. The cue for that may come from so-called en bloc sales, where builders buy out all existing apartment owners and redevelop the land for newer, bigger projects. After a two-year hiatus, the ingredients for this market to spring back to life are in place. A block of 10 terrace homes and a bungalow sold for S$32.8 million ($25 million) in November.