It all started with long queues at the shopping mall roadshow. It took us some time to realize that people are not queuing for popular food or warehouse sale, but for the trackers of National Steps Challenge Season 4 – an initiative by the Health Promotion Board to encourage Singaporeans to be physically active.
Getting fit or getting freebies?
The first exercise people do was queuing which is no doubt the national sport of Singapore. The new season of the steps challenge has been very successful. With so many shop vouchers and prizes to be won, the programme draws lots of participants through word-of-mouth and peer pressure.
I overheard a woman talking over the phone to boast what she has redeemed so far. Another woman urged her husband to sign up so that he could redeem the NTUC FairPrice vouchers for her.
“Are these people really so health conscious, or are they just going after the vouchers?”
“Mommy, they have vouchers from my favourite milk tea franchise too. If you don’t need them, you can give them to me,” said my daughter.
The next day I chanced upon The Greater Singapore Workout! video by comedian Chua Enlai. I found his four dance moves very funny and visited the National Steps Challenge website.
Getting the healthpoints sounds like a piece of cake to me: Going for my morning jog is 3,000 steps. Walking to the market clocks up 2,000. Heading for a walk after dinner is another 5,000. Climbing up and down the stairs at home is easily 500 steps per day.
Together with my weekly yoga and pilates classes, the target of 10,000 steps a day is very achievable. So I immediately signed up for the challenge and downloaded the Healthy 365 app.
When week one began, I even added a 1-hour badminton game on top of my exercise routine, thinking that I could redeem the $5 milk tea voucher for my daughter in no time.
Everything went well until Thursday. I went for an evening stroll along the canal after heavy downpours. It was a bit chilly with occasional drizzle. The next day I started feeling unwell and subsequently came down with a flu.
As I lay on the bed to check my healthpoints, to my horror, the data in my Samsung Health was not synchronized with Healthy 365. Nothing had been captured!
When the target set is not reached, the effort made must be recognized. So I told my daughter how hard I had been exercising for days just to get her a cup of tasty milk tea. Now all my efforts were in vain.
“Can I have your handphone? … see, you just have to keep shaking your phone like this until it clocks up a few thousand steps.”
Can the app tell the difference between points gained by exercising versus shaking? How can the Health Promotion Board guarantee that no participant cheat in the challenge? Do they conduct random check or audit to ensure that we all follow the rules? If everybody cheats by shaking their phone, what is the point of working so hard to accumulate healthpoints?
I reached for my wallet and took out a five dollar banknote.
“Here. Get your milk tea with this and stop shaking my phone please.”
Why buyers are backing off
This week I browsed the website of Squarefoot to check the number of sold units versus returned units for the newly-launched condo projects.
I was surprised to see the extraordinarily high percentage of sold units being returned back to developers last month in October, especially for Stirling Residences (48%), The Tapestry (40%), Park Colonial (38%) and Riverfront Residences (27%).
I thought Orange Tee & Tie told The Straits Times that the October total new sale number “shows that demand for new homes at existing launches have seen a pick-up after the (July 6) measures”?
In the previous month of September, the number of returned units was even higher. Out of the 26 new projects listed there, the developers sold a total of 542 units. However, there were 169 returned units. That means for every three units sold to buyers, one unit was returned back to the developers.
I thought Channel NewsAsia’s article told us that “New private home sales jump 42% in September” compared with last year?
I continued to check the ten heavily-advertised new projects launched in the last two quarters. I was curious to see how many units sold and returned from the first day of launch to end of last month.
It was interesting to find that Stirling Residences, which just won the Best Private Condo Architectural Design by PropertyGuru Asia last Monday, has a return rate as high as 24 percent. How is it possible that the project can have one unit returned for every four units sold?
Park Colonial and Daintree Residence also have high return rate of 20 percent. Affinity at Serangoon and Twin Vew follow closely behind with 16 percent and 14 percent respectively.
I thought The Straits Times just said the top-selling project last month was the Affinity at Serangoon?
In 2017, the high number of returned units may be the result of Extended Option Scheme – when buyers chose to exercise the Option to Purchase on a much later date, betting on the government’s relaxation of ABSD.
But with March’s 4 percent Buyer Stamp Duty and July’s additional property curbs, by now we should all know that the cooling measures are here to stay. All types of deferred payment schemes should have disappeared from the market. (Read my earlier blog post “How the 4% Buyer’s Stamp Duty makes speculators look foolish again”.)
I could only think of three possible reasons behind the large number of returned units:
Reason #1: Buyer’s Remorse
Buyers at the sales galleries are impulsive, or are being pressured by their property agent. They commit without checking their sums or doing due diligence.
Reason #2: Financing Problem
Buyers find they have insufficient capital or their housing loan applications being rejected by the banks after signing the option. With rising interest rates and worsening global economy, banks are more cautious in home financing.
Reason #3: Fake Sales
Developers and their marketing agents are not completely honest. To report impressive sales results, they are blowing their own trumpet. The number of units sold may include buyers who submit their cheques, “book” a unit or only indicate their interest.
The actual number of new sale units
Next, I tried to look for the actual number of units sold for the ten heavily-advertised new projects launched in the last two quarters. The March to October sales data come from three sources:
1) URA prices of residential units sold by developers;
2) URA private residential property transactions; and
3) Squarefoot actual number of units sold after deducting the returned units.
The findings below could make accountants frowned upon because almost none of the projects have their sales numbers tally with each other.
Mysterious Case #1: Inconsistency in percentage of project sold
At the third-quarter results announcement on November 2, developer Chip Eng Seng told the media that Park Colonial is now 65.1 percent sold. This is exactly 524 out of 805 units.
However, there are only 511 transactions for this project in the URA website as of end October. So we assume 13 deals closed in October have their options exercised in November. But according to Squarefoot, after deducting 115 returned units, the project only sold 473 units or 58.7 percent sold.
Mysterious Case #2: Missing deals closed during launch weekend
Still remember The Business Times said “Oxley Holdings has had 112 of the 300 units launched for Phase I sold over its official launch weekend (June 2-3)” for Affinity at Serangoon? Well, URA’s private residential property transactions database shows that there are only 85 transactions of the project in June. And there is no transaction before June. Where have the rest of the 27 units gone?
Mysterious Case #3: More missing units after launch weekend
After the May 5 and 6 weekend, The Business Times has a property article titled “CSC Land sells 85% of Twin Vew units on launch weekend”. It is an impressive sales of 442 out of 520 units. The mysterious part is: For the month of May, there are only 384 transactions for Twin Vew in the URA database. What happen to the rest of the 58 units? Squarefoot data shows out of the 454 units sold that month, 68 units have been returned to the developer.
Can someone explain the large discrepancy between the sales numbers claimed by the developers and the actual caveats lodged with the Singapore Land Authority? How can the system guarantee that no industry stakeholder cheat in their reporting? Did any authority care to conduct any audit to verify the validity of these sales numbers shared to the public?
If everybody cheats by plucking numbers out of the air to exaggerate their sales result in new projects, why would any developer still bother to buy good location, improve condo facilities, design liveable layouts, and set reasonable pricing to attract buyers?
As laymen of the property industry, maybe we shouldn’t take it too seriously for whatever property news and sales numbers the developers, property agencies, local papers or property portals come out with these days. Because the data inconsistencies are frustrating and the lies published are irritating.
If you need advice on property matters or residential properties in Singapore, you can check out my personal consultation service.
My new book Behind The Scenes of The Property Market is now available for preview and order online. You can also check out my online courses.
Wow! CSI at work..!!
I guess if the discrepancies are true.. then the culprits ..whoever they are..developers or agts or any vested interests party should owe up..
That said..i dont think they will be stupid to owe up..
Nevertheless..all.this stats should b taken.with a pinch of salt…i dont believe in any of of stats by the ppty agcies or ppty guru or any of the portals.. i trust the ura stats more than the rest..
Thanks for your CSI..on the data . Well done!
Agree with you that any statistics and numbers shared by the industry stakeholders with vested interests should be taken with a pinch of salt. We don’t expect the culprits to owe up. Just want to remind fellow buyers and investors to be cautious about what they read from the media.
Lol, I can identify with the story on the Steps Challenge. At the end of the day, it is just not worth the trouble & hassle. Naturally active people just do it and I think the band is too restrictive and maybe a bit insulting if we are exercise snobs lol. Back to the very informative CSI, may I also add in New Futura? Go to the URA website, select New Futura and the time frame from Jan 18 to Nov 18 then select “Resale” only. Print out the results in pdf form. I did this on 23/11/2018 and from that date, there are about 71 units recorded as “Resale” aka …. (Drums Roll) DPS. I must say, my method is just hypothetical only and I have not verify it fully. So, potential sleuths have to dyodd.
Yes many who signed up for the Challenge are health conscious and physically active people because they don’t perceive the need to put in too much effort. Those who care the least are the ones who need help the most.
Many new projects launched in 2017 offered DPS to attract buyers. New Futura only has 124 units. It’s not surprising to see many buyers bought under DPS are forced to face the reality and exercised the option at a higher cost this year.
Wow! This is an interesting article. I recalled how the Qs formed for Stirling at the last minutes and the number of awards for the project.
I must say that the developer (Logan and Nashan) and their marketing agent really have superb marketing skills.
They first made good use of the FOMO buyers and rushed for the last-minute launch on July 5.. Whether these buyers dropped out or not it doesn’t matter. At least they clocked up great sales on a single evening and pocketed forfeited deposits from regretful buyers later.
Then they continued to promote Stirling Residence as the top selling project and garnered some awards for publicity. Who cares about the actual transactions lodged and sold units returned. No potential buyer is going to check those database anyway.
Are you sure some of the figures shown are correct? Looking at the table “New Sale Returned Units From Launch to Oct 2018”, for project Twin Vew, there are only a total of 520 units, yet there are 525 units sold? How is that possible?
You are absolutely right. The returned units can be re-sold (and re-sold) again.
Have you stepped into a sales gallery and asked for a one-bedroom unit when the papers clearly said all one-bedders are fully sold? The marketing agent would tell you that you are lucky today because there is one buyer who can’t get his loan and just returns the unit. I got this kind of “luck” a few times. Sometimes the marketing agent calls them “star buys” and offers them at a discount to the next buyer, especially when times are bad.
Hi the number of returned units published by squarefoot seems extremely high. I’m also wondering how reliable is the data on squarefoot website?
Not surprising that many will find it shocking when they see the data for the first time. But this set of data has always been there. It’s just that not everyone cares to check.
The question we should ask is: How do squarefoot, URA, SRX, etc. manage to get their data? Can you find another set of data which is more comprehensive and accurate in this market? If not, we can’t question the reliability of the data.
Do you know that all sales data are based on voluntary disclosure of developers and/or their marketing agents? Even URA property transaction database is from SLA. But lodging of transactions with SLA is not 100% compulsory. And URA’s spreadsheet on prices of residential units sold by developers is based on submissions by developers.
After talking with SRX to find out how and why they come up with their own resale unit numbers, I think it is naive to believe that URA has the most accurate figures.
Honestly, I can easily use some researcher tools to track the actual number of units sold and resold with the exact unit numbers. The results will be even more shocking to you.
Thanks for sharing these information. Really keep amateurs like me in check. Keep up the good work!
Actually you’re right about URA data, my sister bought a resale condo last year and that transaction never ever appeared on URA private property transaction caveats website.. till today we are wondering why, how come the URA data is inaccurate
In the past, I had written to The Straits Times Forum to tell URA that the public deserves more reliable and consistent data. See their reply in my post here -> https://www.propertysoul.com/2014/12/26/uras-reply/
Since then, URA has improved their PPI in 2015 which they claimed to be more representative -> https://www.propertysoul.com/2015/04/04/ura-property-price-index
Also, it is sometimes difficult to get the facts from statistics. To get the complete picture, even the most accurate data must be supplemented with field observations on the ground.
Don’t mention. I am also trying to learn.
https://www.ura.gov.sg/realEstateIIWeb/transaction/search.action
4) It is not mandatory to lodge a caveat. As such, some transacted properties may not have caveats lodged against them.
Jimmy, thanks for finding and sharing the exact wordings from URA.
No body will believe me when I say Money Printing.
What has money printing to do with the mysterious cases property soul is trying to investigate above?
There is this agent who said ‘can buy, don’t buy wait for what??’
According to property soul (which I agree), anyhow buy, wait for 10 years also cannot break even. Timing is important.
Agents are most believable when they admit that at the end of the day, ‘it is some cents in their pockets’. In other words, they say where they are vested. Buy, buy, buy or sell, sell, sell, they need your transactions.
Typical agent talk trying to woo buyers to pay 1700 psf for garden residences:
Miss this you going to pay more later.
Two GLS and one 999 en-bloc next to The Garden Residences and a future MRT station nearby CRL.
Don’t understand and Don’t Believe OCR selling for 2000 psf come for the talk for insider info..
Now, discounts given by Developers make early buyers and agents look stupid. Many leftover units as less than 15% sold, and with over supply in the market, buyers have many choices and can afford the time to choose. Who compensate the early buyers who listened to the agents??
With property bubbles bursting one by one in the world, it is not limited to Singapore that developers who sold at top prices to early birds and secretly offer discounts to new comers,. In China early, buyers of the same new project would gather together to protect their rights and demand rebates and compensations from the developers. When developers failed to do so, angry mobs attached the showflats. This is called “Right Protection Movement” (维权运动).
In Singapore,, home buyers who are being pressed by property agents to buy early at much higher psf, even later when they find that the developer is giving big discounts, they will only lament that they are just being unlucky.
When you see all the data you get a better picture, when you hearsay you get a hearsay picture. Only Time can show whether it is up or down the rest are just ass-u-me. GLS land cost increase 100% in 7 years property should become cheaper, can buy, don’t buy, can only pay more get less be it investment r self-stay. Time waits for No man, it only increases the price of getting the property, so sad for those who Miss The Boat MTB. One million and still counting.
Hi there,
The data is clear. Look at the sales figures of new launch flops like Florence residences, 3% sold at launch after much publicity and advertising !!!
Is Teo See Hwa still ass-u-me or does he still stand by what he said
Quote”
can buy, don’t buy, can only pay more get less be it investment r self-stay. Time waits for No man, it only increases the price of getting the property, so sad for those who Miss The Boat MTB. One million and still counting.
Unquote””
An agent rarely changes his spots.
I remember when I visited showflats back in 2007 and 2013, the property agents all said the same things: “buy now before prices go up again”, “many customers regret not buying earlier”,, “any time is a good time to buy because prices will always go up”. Of course I would not be so dumb to buy at those market peaks. How many ten years I could afford to be stuck with an overvalued property?
But I really enjoy shopping when the market is so depressed that you don’t see other buyers coming for flat viewing, that the same properties are being put up again and again, that property agents keep complaining how bad the market is. Then I will give the property agent a “nice surprise” by giving my offer.
Property investment is about knowing that you will definitely make money the time you buy, not “hoping” that you will make money the time you sell.
I was at one of the new launch show flat over the weekend, and found out that the developers have been helping buyers skirt around the large cash down payment associated with absd by reissuing and reissuing sales and purchase agreement while waiting for buyers to sell their existing properties or to come up with enough cash to down the 25% and stamp duties. it seems like developers are willing to keep extending the date on the agreement in order to lock in the sale.
When times are bad, developers and property agents are getting desperate.
It is unethical to talk “merely stretchable” and “barely reachable” customers into buying something not really affordable to them, only to bag the commission for a one-time purchase.
It is also illegal for agents to introduce moneylenders to potential buyers which I have heard it personally from a property agent who shared with me an “alternative way” when I told her that I didn’t have enough funding.
Hello, thanks for sharing. I am a bit slow on understanding this. Does returned unit mean I pay a deposit at the new launch for an unit, thereafter changed my mind and then forfeit the deposit paid and not proceed with the purchase?
Yes, you are right. There are also buyers who give up their purchase even after they exercise the option. But this is very risky because the developer can sue the buyer for aborting the sale.
https://www.straitstimes.com/business/some-developers-extending-options-to-lock-in-buyers
Developers are issuing and reissuing OTPs. Explains why actuals sales different from reported sales and the large number of returned units.
What is this?
The Business Times article has a longer report on this unscrupulous trick by developers and their marketing agents. Read how they make interesting excuses to cover themselves when the cat is out of the bag. -> https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/real-estate/developers-re-issuing-options-amid-cooling-market-launch-bonanza