Developers have been overstating the sales results of their new projects after last July’s new cooling measures. The situation became out of control in the 4th quarter of 2018. When Credit Suisse published the report “Developer pre-sales: more than meets the eye”, the trick was exposed and the truth was finally out.
In this episode, we will discuss what caused the deflation of Singapore’s private home market.
1) Who deflated the credibility of property news and data?
2) Who deflated the market recovery of the private home market?
Who should take the blame – the developers, property agencies, the analysts, the government authority, or other stakeholders? Let’s find out in this video.
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With positive response from the last session, I am re-running the Finding and Managing Residential Rental Properties Workshop this Saturday. Sign up now and see you there!
Honest view.
It was reported that 2,000 previewed woodleigh residences. In their highly anticipated launch, it was reported that only 28 units were sold on their launch day out of 667 units. Only 4%!!! This could be the biggest flop until
Florence Residences reported thousands of visitors and sold 54 units out of 1,400. 3% sold during launch.
One of the largest property agencies commented that times are difficult and sales are decent.
Why not cut the crap? State the facts: Sales were disasterous as developers find it more difficult to find sucxxxs to pass the poison balls to. New launch have been overpriced and Developers ought to be punished for being too euphoric by bidding high prices.
Thanks for your comments. I agree with you that it’s much better to tell the truth. With all the facts and data in front of us, it is embarrassing for the developers, property agencies and the media to continue to say the opposite. Who are they trying to fool except themselves?
If they can bite the bullet and admit that times are bad, at least they can attract some buyers looking for value. Being an honest salesman is far better than being a hard-sell salesman. Remember: No Trust. No business.
This is yet another tool used by the developers and their agents to defraud the market. It just shows that they will go to great lengths to deceive the public into thinking that all is well with the property market.
The URA ought to crack down on this kind of fraud rather than passively restructuring and the data they publish. They’ve known about it all this time and done nothing to correct it before it was publicly called out by the likes of Vina and the CS research team. By not doing anything to stop the practice, the URA is effectively aiding and abetting this fraud.
Unless official action is taken, all that will happen now is that the developers and agents will pack this tool away for now and put it back on the shelf for use at a later date when the scrutiny around it has died down. And we can expect the mainstream media to sweep this whole thing under the carpet and pretend like it never happened after a few days. Everything must be done to ensure the show must go on!
Well said! This is the bunch of people who tarnish the reputation of the Singapore property industry. We have the Controller of Housing, URA and CEA .to monitor and govern the real estate industry. Yet all the licensing and controlling have done nothing much to create a professional image.
Every day we see a group of cowboys from developers, property agencies , mortgagee banks and local media putting on deceiving tricks and patting on the back of each other. When are they going to clean up this cowboy industry and their monkey business?
You must know that the govt has vested interest on the property markets. If they bare all the honest truths.. they themselves will suffer also.. like their land sales.. one of the main source of income for the govt is the land sales.. so it is better for BCA, URA and other authorities to “”tiam Tiam”” (keep quiet) and hope that everything goes on well and collect revenue via taxes and others from there.
The government already made their money from selling land sites at record prices and received higher stamp dutie, property taxes and development charges. Now just waiting for the 5-year deadline to collect ABSD and extension charges from unsold units of developers .
With the hopeless sales of new launches, one of the largest property agencies continue to con the public. There was even a video by this agency where an agent tried persuading two innocent ladies that they should buy Florence Residence because prices will only go up due to developers paying sky high prices for land.
What he did not share is that there are cases where developers have to bite the bullets because they paid too much for land and buyers need not be suckers. Case in point, The Paronama, where Developers have to write off losses since they are unable to pass on their poison balls to the buyers who are not so stupid.
I really feel some property agencies think there are so many dumb people on the streets.
Thanks for sharing, especially on the case of The Panorama.
The difference between the developers and individual buyers is that the businesses of bigger developers are diversified. Their portfolio in different market segments and countries allow them to absorb loss in some projects. They can easily “subsidize” the loss of one or two local projects with high margin projects from somewhere else. But individual buyers like us have limited capital. Most often we have to put all our eggs in one basket and we end up losing our pants.
Sadly, there are still ignorant buyers who choose to trust the words of the middleman without questioning what they said.
Agents have started “condemning you”..on FB..under “Agents United”..you are being “viciously” called for writing up “garbage or rubbish”…cos the truth hurts..
No wonder my blog gets so much new traffic. Anyway, good to get more publicity. As they said, only real men dare to face head-on with the hard truths in life.
How is ‘returned unit’ no calculated? Is that reported by developers on each project? I mean if developers won’t let general public know of the actual number of sales, will they ever make such returned-unit number available? (i’m not referring to the numbers reported on squarefoot, but how are these numbers collected)
You check the number of new units sold reported by the developers against the actual transacted units (after exercising the Option to Purchase), the rest of them are the number of returned units. Both URA and Squarefoot.com report the same data.
We support the truth and the blog.
The more the con artists gang up against the truth, the more brightly the truth shines. More publicity and more people visiting this blog expounding the hard truths.
The truth will prevail over lies just like the good will prevail over the bad.
There was one con artist who keep singing the tune ‘can buy, don’t buy, wait for what, prices only shooting up’. Today, our finance minister warned of dark skies not just dark clouds on the horizon. During bad years, you expect prices to continue shoot up?
Thanks for your comments. We welcome different views but not those with vested interests trying to mislead buyers who lack individual judgment. Because there are serious consequences. If we know the truth but keep quiet, it is not far from colluding with the liars.
Another hype up.
With the sale of 12% at launch, 270 units out of 2,2xx units at Treasure @ Tampines, one of the largest agency has this to say, “to sell more than 200 units post-cooling measures is a very commendable effort. That’s why I think Treasure has done very well ….”
Whether 12% is very good is up to you to decide. The Garden Residences sold 10 to 15% during launch and was considered a failure.
Imagine a child getting 12 marks out of a 100 and the parent keep telling the child, you are doing very well. You are very good considering yyy zzzz, please keep it up!!
Really unthinkable.
The developer has spent a lot of money to prepare for the launch: sales gallery, advertising, agent commission, etc, Of course the marketing agent has to say 12 percent units sold is “commendable effort”.
The question is: How and when the developer can sell the rest of the 88 percent leftovers?