Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty effective 8th Dec 2011
Urban redevelopment authority, a statutory board of Ministry of National Development – Singapore announced an additional Buyer’s stamp duty (ABSD) to curb speculation on the 7th Dec 2011 and with effect from 8th Dec 2011.
Currently the stamp duty for purchasing a residential property is:
• 1% of the selling price for the first $180,000
• 2% of the selling price for the next $180,000
• 3% of the selling price for the from $360,000 onwards.
Will Luxury Condominiums targeted at foreigners to be hit by new regulation?
Will this additional stamp duty cool the private residential market?
The Additional Property Buyer stamp duty (ABSD) from 08 Dec 2011 is:
Foreigners and Non-individuals (Corporate entities) buying Residential property will pay an ABSD of
• 10%
Permanent residents (PR) owning one and buying the second and subsequent residential property will be liable to an Additional buyer stamp duty
• 3 percent
Singapore Citizens (Singaporeans) owning two and buying the third and subsequent residential property will pay an ABSD of
• 3 percent
Permanent Residents owning 1 and buying the 2nd and subsequent residential property will pay an additional buyer stamp duty
• 3 percent
Singapore citizens owning 2 and buying the 3rd and more residential property will pay an additional buyer stamp duty of
• 3 percent
Foreign purchases account for 19% of all private residential property purchases in 2H 2011, up from 7% in 1H 2009. (URA)
In the case of a joint purchase, as long as any party is a PR or Foreigner, the higher additional property buyer stamp duty will apply.
However For HDB property buyers| HDB Property Buyers not affected| URA clarified that HDB property buyers are not affected
The purchase of HDB properties will not be affected by this measure. Only Singaporeans and Permanent Residents are eligible to be HDB flat lessees (i.e. own a flat). Existing residential property owners who buy an HDB flat or a new unit under the Design, Build and Sell Scheme (DBSS) or the Executive Condominium (EC) Housing Scheme will not be subject to the ABSD, since the existing flat/property will have to be disposed of as part of the conditions for the purchase of the HDB/DBSS flat or EC unit.
Buying property in singapore is becoming a complicated affair.
Likely Effects of Singapore’s Additional Buyer Stamp Duty|What is the effect of the Additional Buyer Stamp Duty (ABSD)?
We praise the URA for making this additional cooling measure. This measure will further cool the market. This cooling measure is also timely as it prevents foreign owned corporate entities from cheaply buying up private properties. There is currently a lot of Money supply in the world as the M2 money growth has often outpaced the growth of the GDP, especially since 2009 when the US has printed more money via quantitative easing. This may be a preemptive move against possible asset inflation. (Appendix 1: US M2 Money Supply and European M2 Money Supply).
All these money supply in the world is ample and an additional 10% of stamp duty may not entirely stop them. It may simply be re-directed into other segments.
Inflation reduction?
What affects inflation?
[MV = PQ] = (by Irving Fisher, 1911)
Where
• M is the total dollars in a Nation’s money supply (generally the M3 or M2)
• V is the number of times per year each dollar is spent (Velocity of money)
• P is the avg. price of all the goods and services sold during the year.
• Q is the quantity of Assets, goods and services sold during the year.
When M2 or M3 increase, where V and Quantity stays the same, then P increase. The rate of P’s increase is inflation.
Right now, we are seeing M2 or M3 increasing faster than GDP in many nations, while prices are fairly stable at ~5.4% (in 2011) in Singapore and production (Quantity) is rather stable, this means that V, the velocity of money has yet to pick up. In other words, people are not yet spending.
Once Velocity of money V picks up, in order to control price rise, Quantity will have to pick up dramatically as well. Not all quantity can be ramped up quickly enough.
[M2 or M3 increase] x [V] = [P] x [Q]
Imposing a stamp duty has the effect of reducing the foreign owned portion of M2 or M3 from the Singapore property market.
In short, this policy may somewhat reduce inflation attributed from Housing. However it may not stop these money from being channeled to other parts of the economy, especially commercial properties.
Singapore Recession worries
Now, with the European debt crisis looming, we wonder whether this is the right time to impose such a regulatory measure. After all the property market has already cooled dramatically. Moreover, this policy hurts the mid tier private property markets and entry level luxury more.
Should the policy target run away prices in HDB instead?
HDB’s supply is still in short supply in terms of physical stock. (Although HDB is ramping up construction and release of land.) However, a balance of supply and demand of HDB flats is not met yet. It may
take another 2 years to balance the supply and demand. (as the Minister of National development said, the housing problem won’t be solved immediately), as it is a major slip up in managing of supply and demand (property buyer’s view).
HDB pricing index will likely continue to rise into 2012 and 2013 as imbalance is gradually more balanced.
While DBSS is being added to the supply, these Design, Build and sell housing by private developers of HDB houses lead to a even more severe rise in HDB housing prices.
DBSS developers buy expensive land from the Singapore government, add on their profit and then pass on these costs to helpless Singaporeans and Permanent citizens.
Singapore government is the ultimate winner in terms of the good price for the land.
We expect to see HDB, DBSS and Executive condominium (EC) approaching the prices of Mass Market Condominium prices. While mass market condominiums may fall in prices or volume or both for the short term, when EC prices rise, the mass market condominium prices will be supported.
In addition, the Singapore government has successfully imposed additional tax in the guise of cooling the market, thereby raising revenues and hence the salaries of the capable Singapore ministers.
Unfortunately this additional buyer stamp duty (ABSD) does not apply to HDB, Design, Build and Sell (DBSS) and Executive Condominium (EC). This ABSD affects Private property while what it should have done is to manage HDB price rises, especially the Run-away prices of DBSS flats. It’s unfortunately for Singaporeans.
Severe Demographic effects – Singapore’s Resident Population to dramatically increase?
Could more PR become Singaporeans so as to buy more private property (a third or more)?.
More foreigners holding employment pass will apply to become Permanent residents to qualify for buying HDB flats, leading to more housing demand pressures.
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We are worried that this policy is aimed at MASSIVELY increasing Singapore’s resident population (Citizens as well as PRs) at the lower end of the salary scale.
Here is our proposal
If we were the regulator, we believe these will be more fair.
Keep the regulation simple. Refrain from using micro economic and regulation levers as these minute controls could back-fire and cause untold hardships to people.
To impose the following regulations on: – Proposal to Impose regulations on:
Housing Development Board Flats
- · HDB flat owner who own a Private resident property must stay in their HDB flat regardless of whether they meet the minimum occupation period (MOP) or not. (effective immediately, a grace period of 2 years will be given for HDB flat owners to move back into their HDB flats, else sell their HDBs in the open market.)
o This stops existing HDB home owner from owning a HDB and staying elsewhere and making money by renting out their HDB flats.
o No force to be applied to them to sell their HDB flats, but they cannot make money via renting out their HDB flats while owning other Private residential properties and staying in private residential properties.
• Permanent Residents must wait 5 years after attaining PR status before they can buy HDB resale flat.
o All PRs to pay additional buyer stamp duty of 10% on HDB resale flats.
Proposed regulation on Private Properties
• Corporate entities who buy residential properties will pay an additional buyer stamp duty of 10% (NO change)
o This should be especially applied to landed properties where it is scarce.
• Permanent Residents must wait 5 years after attaining PR status before they can buy a landed property.
o PRs not meeting the 5 year waiting period shall be rejected by the Land Dealings Approval Unit (LDAU), else a 15% additional buyer’s stamp duty of 15% is applied.
For Foreigners or PR purchase of private property (non landed): -
o NO additional buyer stamp duty, but
o Loan to value from Singapore banks to be reduced to 50%.
Regulation for Commercial Properties
• All foreign person or entities who buy residential
properties to pay an additional buyer stamp duty of 10%.
Summary of URA policy changes
URA’s imposition of the additional buyer stamp duty is generally correct in pre-emptive prevention of inflation given the massive money supply, however the timing is questionable as European debt crisis is still unfolding and money velocity is still slow.
This policy seems like another political knee jerk reaction, while it hides dangerous and possible side effects of massively increasing the Singapore Citizen population and PR population through lower tier foreigners.
This additional buyer stamp duty should stop speculation in HDB instead and leave the private residential property market alone.
If it is the intention to cool the property market by additional buyer stamp duty, then our proposed policies will work better as it potentially frees up HDB flats into the market and at the same time blocks demand from PR for HDB resale flat in the short term, easing pressures on HDB flats prices.
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