Thursday, March 5, 2009

As you can from the data above, the price plunges by more than 10% in a year only in 1997 and 1998during the Asian Financial Crisis. You must remember then that there was also a huge over-supply of new HDB then of which some still remain unsold today. Given that the government is trying not to over-supply with its BTO, rather than just build without order in the 90s, I personally think it's unlikely for the same sort of over-supply to happen this time round. In addition, the HDB rental demand is very strong too. In the 90s, HDB owners do not have the option of leasing their flats.The peak price was in 1996, 4Q (PPI=136.9). The current PPI is 131.7, still below the peak. In fact, my judgement says prices for resale HDB are very unlikely to fall like in 1997-98 even if we should go into a recession.My forecast for price fall is largely for private property where there is an accumulation of unsold units and where ROI is already low and rental yield is likely to see more downside

No comments: