If you are wondering why are some Singaporeans opting to buy a condo instead of older HDB resale flats, well... there are quite a few reasons. Some felt that after adding the town council fees and car park season parking charges, they might as well pay about the same amount to condo maintenance fees and they can enjoy a carpark space plus beautiful condo facilities like swimming pool, bbq pits, gym, tennis courts, function rooms, etc. As we work hard for money, we must also not forget to pamper ourselves with a lifestyle that lets us enjoy life as it should be enjoyed.

Tanjong Pagar
This city fringe estate is amazing with many 5-room flats at Pinnacle @ Duxton selling for more than $1 million. That equates to a profits of more than $600,000 for every unit transacted in the resale market.

Bishan
Bishan which used to be a cemetery has always been a hot location for HDB buyers with their proximity to good schools and amenities. The 5 room HDB flats in Bishan often achieved more than $1 million in resale price.

Boon Keng
Boon Keng is a city fringe estate with lots of amenities and eateries. Their 5 room resale HDB flats have been selling for above $1 million recently.

Toa Payoh
Toa Payoh is a very popular town for HDB buyers because of its satellite town status with amenities and eateries all around. We regularly see resale 5 room HDB flats hitting the $1 million mark in Toa Payoh.

Redhill
Redhill is an old matured estate with convenience and good accessibility for residents. The 5 room HDB flats there have been recorded selling for close to $1 million.

Tiong Bahru
Similar to Redhill, Tiong Bahru enjoys an additional heritage appeal which is especially attractive to foreigners who love the unique mix of old and new in Tiong Bahru. 5 room HDB flats are known to sell more than $1million in Tiong Bahru estate.

Queenstown
Queenstown is a quieter matured estate that seems to be more attractive with older home buyers. The 5 room HDB flats in the estate have known to be sold for nearly $1 million last year in 2016.

Clementi
This estate of Clementi is known to be near to many good schools and tertiary schools and is very popular with parents whose children are studying there. Just last year, we saw a 5 room flat in Clementi selling for more than $1 million.

Bedok
This estate is near the airport and is popular with buyers who love staying in the east. It is convenient and pretty quiet even though its a matured estate. We saw some resale HDB flats selling for close to $1 million.

Commonwealth
Commonwealth has gone through a dynamic facelift and therefore recently seen quite a few HDB resale transactions hitting the $1 million dollar mark.

Trusts have long been seen as an investment instrument for the well-heeled, but many people now realise that they can be useful and relevant legacy-planning tools. While wills are essential, trusts are also important because of our growing wealth - based on the potential value of our estate upon death - and the vulnerable beneficiaries we may have.

If you have $1 million when you count your cash, homes and insurance proceeds and have vulnerable beneficiaries which would include minors, adults who cannot handle money (such as offspring who are young adults), senior citizens (like parents) and persons with special needs, ask yourself if you would give $1 million to such vulnerable beneficiaries in a lump sum... would you say yes? Most would say no.

Yet most do so in the end because most don't even write a will, let alone (set up) a trust. There are also people who use trusts to ensure that their wealth is kept within direct family members such as spouses, children and grandchildren but leaving out children's spouses and their in-laws. People in high-risk business with exposure to potential creditors can also set up a trust to shield part of their assets.

Below are 5 Legacy Planning tools that you need to know:

• WILL 

A will is a declaration about the distribution and management of your estate, which includes your assets. It takes effect after your death.

• TRUST 

A trust serves to protect family assets that might otherwise go to beneficiaries too young to get substantial inheritances, or who are spendthrifts, financially immature or vulnerable.
The ultimate distributions to them should be delayed for a certain time to ensure they get their inheritance when they reach a certain age or maturity.

• LASTING POWER OF ATTORNEY (LPA) 

An LPA is drawn up to appoint people entrusted to look after you (the donor) at a time when you lose mental capacity. Caregiving has two aspects - personal welfare and property, and financial affairs.

• ADVANCE MEDICAL DIRECTIVE (AMD) 

An AMD expresses your intention that no extraordinary life-sustaining treatment should be applied if you suffer from a terminal illness and become unconscious or incapable of exercising rational judgment.

• NOMINATION OF CENTRAL PROVIDENT FUND SAVINGS

Such savings cannot be distributed through a will. It is prudent to nominate your beneficiaries as the Public Trustee charges a fee for administering un-nominated CPF money.

Trust is a legacy planning instrument that most are not aware of.
In a nutshell, a trust is a legal arrangement that allows an individual to place his assets such as shares, money and property such that an appointed person or trustee can manage and administer them for the benefit of others (beneficiaries).

In the past, trusts were generally pitched at rich clients and offered by private banks, but now independent trust firms are offering such services on the back of the population's growing wealth.

Below are five scenarios where trusts can be relevant to you.

1. ENSURING MAINTENANCE OF YOUNG CHILDREN
Having the option of stating a fixed amount to be given to your children every month depending on their life stage, until they become adults.

2. SHIELDING ASSETS FROM DIVISION UPON YOUR DIVORCE
Your assets set aside in the trust for the child will never be subject to division in a divorce. This protection cannot be secured by a will, which can be revoked any time.

3. SHIELDING ASSETS SHOULD YOUR CHILDREN DIVORCE
Your assets will never be part of the children's matrimonial assets. The trust documents may also state the assets are meant only for the parents' children and grandchildren, but not in-laws.

4. AVOIDING POTENTIAL CLAIMS MADE AGAINST BENEFICIARIES
Legacy-planning specialists recommend the standby trust as an affordable and flexible tool. This is a distinctive trust that caters to the client who may decide to transfer some of his significant assets into trust only at a future date. It is an alternative proposition as the client may have no need to transfer his assets while he is mentally lucid. A standby trust offers more confidentiality than a trust set up from within a will (known as a testamentary trust) and amendments to the so-called "Letter of wishes" can be made at little cost. When the trust is on standby mode, the annual costs are typically nominal, starting from $250, and include reviews of your wishes.

5. LENDING MONEY FROM A TRUST TO A BENEFICIARY FOR PURCHASE OF A RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY
Your inheritance to your children gives them a head start in their lives but is controlled until such time when the young beneficiary becomes of age and is financially more mature.

HDB resale transaction process will be shorter and easier for both sellers and buyers of HDB flats from 1st Jan onwards. The Housing Board is upgrading its resale portal to make it easier to file applications and conduct eligibility checks, it said in a statement on Thursday (Oct 19).

As a result, only one appointment with the HDB - instead of two - will be required. The entire transaction time will be shortened by up to eight weeks, from 16 weeks currently.

The change, which was promised during March's debate on the National Development Ministry's budget, will kick in on Jan 1, 2018. In a Facebook post, National Development Minister Lawrence Wong said the new platform was one of the initiatives under the Real Estate Industry Transformation Map and "part of our move towards being a smart nation".

Said an HDB spokesman: "By harnessing technology and transaction data to establish the reasonableness of a transacted price, some cases may not require a valuation for this purpose. This will help expedite the processing of resale transactions. Nevertheless, where a valuation is assessed to be needed, it will still be done."

The updated portal will also minimise the need for buyers and sellers to manually key in their data, as it will pull in common information used by government services, such as names, IC numbers and addresses, for the relevant forms.

Buyers and sellers will also be able to check their eligibility for housing grants or HDB loans, or whether they can even buy or sell a flat, at a glance, rather than have to check multiple e-services on the current website.

Flat buyers and sellers will have to use a new Option to Purchase form - a legal document giving buyer the exclusive right to buy a flat - when the changes take effect. The current form is valid till Dec 31.

Among other things, the new system will require buyers to get the HDB to confirm the value of a potential flat directly, instead of getting a report through a panel of valuers. This will cost $120 for all flat types, instead of $156.45 for one- and two-room flats, or $226 for three-room and larger flats.

Said an HDB spokesman: "By harnessing technology and transaction data to establish the reasonableness of a transacted price, some cases may not require a valuation for this purpose. This will help expedite the processing of resale transactions. Nevertheless, where a valuation is assessed to be needed, it will still be done."

The updated portal will also minimise the need for buyers and sellers to manually key in their data, as it will pull in common information used by government services, such as names, IC numbers and addresses, for the relevant forms.

Buyers and sellers will also be able to check their eligibility for housing grants or HDB loans, or whether they can even buy or sell a flat, at a glance, rather than have to check multiple e-services on the current website.

Flat buyers and sellers will have to use a new Option to Purchase form - a legal document that gives a buyer the exclusive right to buy a flat - when the changes take effect. The current form is valid till Dec 31.

The HDB spokesman said there is no change to the role of estate agents, as buyers and sellers can continue to engage them if they wish. Mr Wong also said the changes will "free them up from time-consuming administrative work and allow them to focus on higher value-added work".

The spokesman also noted that the proportion of resale flat buyers and sellers who opted for the do-it-yourself route has increased from 11 per cent in 2010 to 27 per cent in the first half of this year.

"In particular, we have observed a clear and increasing trend of flat buyers carrying out transactions on their own. This upward trend could be due to the fact that resale flat buyers are generally younger and more tech savvy than resale flat sellers," she said.

Singapore may be about to join the growing list of places around the world seeking to limit the power of Airbnb and similar home-sharing platforms. You're probably familiar with the complaints regarding noise, congestion, safety and the overall decline in quality of life in places where short-term rentals are booming. Places like Paris and Berlin have made headlines recently for cracking down on Airbnb hosts and creating tighter restrictions. What makes Singapore a unique case is the fact that strict rules haven't slowed down the supply or the demand for short-term properties.

Singapore's residents are growing increasingly frustrated with the surge in short-term rentals. Government officials and hotel operators are also sharing in the frustration. Tourism in Singapore has actually surged this year. However, this isn't being reflected in hotel revenues and receipts. This likely means that tourists are choosing to rent private homes during their stays instead of following the traditional route of checking into hotels and resorts.

One of the measures could the imposition of fines against recalcitrant home-owners who do not remove their properties from Airbnb listing after fulfilling the rental period imposed. This could cause home owners to pull their listings or cancel reservations at the last minute. Such scenarios would obviously be problematic for a traveler planning a trip. However, Airbnb has yet to make any move warning renters about the potential for issues when making reservations in Singapore.

What makes Singapore a unique case is the fact that strict rules haven’t slowed down the supply or the demand for short-term properties. Tourists looking for rentals in Singapore are caught in the middle of the battle over short-term rentals. While new rules are on the books, Singapore doesn’t appear to be cracking down very harshly on property owners with listings that are in violation of those rules.

The government is now taking swift action to ensure that the short-term rental market doesn't get out of hand. Officials aren't saying that they want short-term rental options banished from Singapore permanently. Instead, officials would like an opportunity to evaluate where the short-term rental market should fit into the overall economy.

One issue that needs to be straightened out is how home-sharing businesses and the property owners that participate with them should be taxed. Short-term rentals don't fit into traditional categories that would normally face resort taxes or investment-property taxes. However, the overall belief among authorities in places that are seeing a boom in short-term rentals is that these properties should be taxed in some special category beyond just traditional property tax.

What Singapore Is Doing to Limit Short-Term Rentals:

A few months ago, it was announced that the government was thinking of creating a “new class” of private homes. These homes would be approved for short-term rentals. Would these properties be sold at a higher price, since residents would be able to make more money out of them by renting them out on a short-term basis? How would that affect the rest of the private property market? How would the government regulate the market and stop those in non-approved residences from doing the same? Would these short-term rental properties turn into backpacker ghettos? It seems that the government, in lowering the minimum rental period, has accepted that it was not a feasible idea.

Even though Singapore recently placed limitations on how long residents can rent out their properties to visitors. However, many short-term rental agencies continue to list available properties for stays that are much shorter than the three-month minimum. This shows a growing demand for short-term leases. More are visiting Singapore for a few months, e.g. foreign students studying at tertiary or private schools in Singapore for just one semester and need to rent a room for only a few months, or foreigners seeking medical assistance in Singapore and staying for a few weeks or months. There are also foreign interns who take on work experience stints of just a few months.

En-bloc fever continues to rage in the property market, with freehold development Changi Garden attracting a winning tender bid of S$248.8 million, which surprised analysts.

CEL Real Estate Development’s offer to buy over the estate is close to 30 per cent higher than the asking price, and analysts said that it was unexpected given that the mixed development, with residential and retail units, is not in a central location. Chip Eng Seng said that it intends to develop a low-rise residential condominium on the site, comprising around 320 units, with full facilities and possibly some retail shops.

The estate, located at the junction of Upper Changi Road North and Jalan Mariam, comprises 60 apartments, 12 penthouses and 12 shops. Chip Eng Seng beat eight other bidders to win the tender. The purchase price works out to S$888 per square foot (psf) per plot ratio for the 200,093 sqft site.

In the past, developers focused on prime districts for collective sales, but today it is all over the island, even though Changi Garden is located opposite Changi Prison.

Analysts noted that the asking price is already considered high, but the developer is willing to bid even higher therefore translating to higher prices when the new development is launched towards the end of next year. Market analysts said the price reflects the confidence the developer has in the property market in the short term, that prices will increase. The estimated break-even price is calculated to be around from S$1,350 psf to S$1,400 psf.

Competition for land parcels in Singapore is also getting hotter as foreign developers especially cash rich developers from China join in Singapore's feverish en bloc market as they are confident of Singapore's future. Amid limited options under the government land sales (GLS) programme, a few have plunged headlong into the game while several others are sussing out information on available en bloc sites and learning how the process works. It may only be a matter of time before more will emerge with en bloc trophies in hand, market watchers say.

Due to severe land constraint in Singapore, current supply of GLS land parcels are very limited and therefore faced with land supply shortage, developers have to aggressively bid for enbloc sites to stock up on their landbanks.

Two weeks ago, Chinese firm Kingsford Huray Development, owned by Chinese-citizen-turned-Singaporean Cui Zhengfeng, acquired Normanton Park, a former government housing project off Ayer Rajah Expressway, for S$830.1 million this month. This follows the purchase of freehold condominum project Sun Rosier for S$271 million by SingHaiyi Properties and Huajiang International Corporation, both controlled by Chinese tycoon Gordon Tang and wife Chen Huaidan. In May last year, Qingjian Realty bought former HUDC estate Shunfu Ville for S$638 million.

Chinese developers are also keen to hold commercial properties here for recurring income. In July, a buyer said to be linked to the Zhao family from China acquired freehold industrial complex Citimac.

Talk in the market is that the SingHaiyi joint venture was in such hurry to seal the deal for Sun Rosier that it came without representation from lawyers and without amendments to any terms in the collective sales agreement.

In August 2017, developer GuocoLand has trimmed the number of units put up for sale at its latest condominium Martin Modern, in what is seen as a bet on private residential prices reversing course after years of decline.

Other developers also appear to share the sentiment, Chinese developer Qingjian Realty held back the second phase of its sales launch at Le Quest project, a mixed development in Bukit Batok, in anticipation of a possible upturn in the property market.

Lendlease had also put off placing new units at Park Place Residences, in Paya Lebar, on the market after launching 217 apartments for sale in March - in the hope of pricing the remaining units at a higher price. After Park Place Residences' first phase of its launch in March, Lendlease stopped making new units available.

On Tuesday (10 Oct 2017) CapitaLand announced that it will temporarily halt sale of two condo developments: Marine Blue and Sky Habitat in the hope of pricing the remaining units at a higher price next year in 2018.

Market watchers say developers are currently low on land banks, and with the additional competition from large overseas developers who see Singapore as an under-priced safe haven among many cities in the world today, developers may not be able to replenish their land bank through the government land sales and en bloc processes in time to launch new developments, so they “may be adopting this strategy in order to smooth out their cash flow” for the future.

Normanton Park, a former HUDC estate named after the road on which it sits that has been put up for collective sale at a minimum price of $800 million ($898 psf ppr, including development charges and lease top-up premium) is awarded to KINGSFORD Huray Development at a price of S$830.1 million.

This works out to S$969 per square foot per plot ratio inclusive of differential premium and lease upgrading premium.

Normanton Park, which is near Science Park and Kent Ridge Park, is on a 660,999 square foot site that has a balance lease term of about 59 years. Knight Frank marketed the collective sale of Normanton Park through a tender that closed on Thursday 5 Oct 2017.

The current 23-storey development, located off Ayer Rajah Expressway, consists of 488 units, and can be redeveloped into a property with a maximum permissible GFA of 1.39 million sq ft.

Based on the 2014 Master Plan, the 661,000 sq ft site on which Normanton Park sits is zoned “residential” with a gross plot ratio of 2.1, and has approximately 59 years remaining on its current 99-year lease.

"Each owner will stand to receive a gross sale price of approximately S$1.68 million to S$1.86 million upon a successful sale, which is subject to several conditions being met, including an order of sale by the Strata Titles Board or High Court," Knight Frank said in a release on Thursday night.
Normanton Park is near educational institutions including Anglo-Chinese School (Independent), Fairfield Methodist primary and secondary schools, National University of Singapore, Singapore Polytechnic and Insead.

The new high-rise development on the site could potentially have close to 1,290 homes of an average size of 100 sq m (1,076 sq ft) gross floor area.

In a sign that the Singapore property market has turned the corner, private home prices rose for the first time in nearly four years in the third quarter, latest flash estimates from the Urban Redevelopment Authority on Monday (Oct 2) show. Prices went up 0.5 per cent in the three months ended Sept 30, versus the 0.1 per cent decline between April and June 2017.

The private residential property price index now stands at 137.3 points, whereas the figure was a record 154.6 points before going on 15 straight quarters of decline. Flash estimates are compiled based on transaction prices in contracts submitted for stamp duty payment and data on units sold by developers until mid-September.

The price index increase is seen as a strong signal that the market has turned. However, as the TDSR framework continues to keep a lid on prices, any price increase may be gradual.

Based on the positive sentiment in both primary and secondary markets and a sense of greater urgency by buyers and investors, experts estimate that 21,000 to 23,000 units may be sold for 2017 (new and resale); an increase of 28 per cent to 40 per cent over last year’s total of 16,378 units.

In the latest estimates, prices of private residences in the suburbs, or outside central region (OCR) rose by 0.7 per cent, after a 0.3 per cent decline in the preceding quarter. In the city centre, or core central region (CCR), prices of non-landed private residential properties increased by 0.2 per cent, rebounding from a 0.5 per cent drop in the second quarter. Prices in the rest of the central region (RCR), or city fringes remain unchanged.

Last week, OCBC and Morgan Stanley had told clients they expected the first price upturn since 2013 in the third quarter of this year. Morgan Stanley had projected a 0.8 per cent quarter-on-quarter rise, while OCBC Investment Research wrote that it believed “the bottom is actually behind us”. Some of the reasons cited for expectations of a turn in the property cycle include better sales volumes and higher prices at new launches this year.

In the first half of 2017, the total transaction volume in both the primary and secondary markets was 12,107 units, up 64 per cent compared to the first half of 2016. Market sentiment has picked up considerably this year, despite the Government remaining firm that property cooling measures are unlikely to be lifted any time soon. In March, however, the Seller’s Stamp Duty was tweaked slightly, stoking buyer optimism. The duty, paid by sellers on residential properties, was reduced, while rules on loan thresholds were also eased slightly.