Property cooling measures timely: Wing Tai

 September 4, 2010 

The measures announced by the government on Monday to cool the property market were timely as prices had gone up to unsustainable levels, according to real estate developer Wing Tai Holdings.

Mr Edmund Cheng, Wing Tai’s deputy chairman who said this on Friday at the launch of its luxury project Belle Vue Residences, added that prices for future land tenders would need to be adjusted downwards as sentiment had cooled.

However, he said Wing Tai would not be affected too much by the new curbs.

“The measures, I think, address the upgraders’ market more. Most of our properties are all high-end, upper-middle and super high-end, so the impact is not much,” he said.

Wing Tai said 109 of its 167 units at Belle Vue had been sold. It said it was confident that the project would be fully taken up, with foreigners expected to make up half the buyers. The remaining units are priced between $2,300 and $2,800 per square foot.

But while developers such as Wing Tai may stay positive, some observers expect the banking sector to feel the impact from the recent anti-speculative measures.

Banks could see a significant drop in profit contributions from housing loans, some analysts said.

“UOB has the largest percentage based on their total income. For them, we are looking at 20 to 30 per cent of their total top line coming from housing loans. Therefore they would be, in our view, most affected by the clamp down in the property sector, followed by DBS,” said Mr Moh Tze Yang, lead analyst at SIAS Research.

Source : Today – 4 Sep 2010