For those who are not conversant with the Singapore history books, the Land Acquisition Act was passed in 1966. This Act enabled the PAP govt. to accumulate enormous tracts of land from private hands for pittances. Over time, the Singapore govt. grabbed over 60% of all land in Singapore. The only tracts of land that they couldn’t use the Land Acquisition Act on were KTM’s Keppel Station & their rail tracks and the vast forested land along Cluny Road/Holland Road – this land belongs to the Sultan of Johor. If the PAP forcibly acquires that land, Singapore’s water supply would be cut off plus it would be an act of war. Private property especially those with freehold status are the prime lands. They have to move up in price first before govt. land can appreciate. Hence the strata titles laws were adjusted to unlock the value of private land – to allow collective sales or EN-BLOC. The rapid appreciation of private land prices took place via the unlocked collective sales mechanism. The govt. began the Govt. Land Sales (GLS) program in lock step with the fast appreciating private land sales prices. Note that the GLCs such as CapitaLand (formerly DBS Land) and Keppel Land were aggressive buyers of EN-BLOC auctions. Today, the EN-BLOC sector is dead – strangled by revised legislation favoring minority interest & adverse development time-frame for properties acquired by EN-BLOC. These days, the only game in town is GLS but developers’ margins are thin. Methinks the Singapore property game is OVER! It has become like trading a commodity – focusing only on S$psf & location. Shoebox apartments are hardly liveable. Properties with 60 years tenure are a joke. I hope the buyers are going in with their eyes open. HDB flats are hardly affordable these days. Where do we go from here? It is anybody’s guess!
Posted on: Sun, 20 Apr 2014 00:34:38 +0000
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