Bank lending to the property sector continued to accelerate in October, growing at the fastest annual pace in eight years, according to new data from the Singapore central bank yesterday.
Overall loans growth in the banking sector also picked up in October, the latest estimates from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) show.
Loans to the broad property sector, comprising consumer home loans and business loans to the building and construction industry, reached $105.7 billion at end-October - up 18.1 per cent from a year ago.
The year-on-year expansion was the fastest since October 1999, when property-related lending grew by 19.5 per cent.
Over the month, property-related loans grew 3.2 per cent from $102.4 billion at end-September, the fastest monthly pace since Nov 1998.
Consumer home loans, which include mortgages as well as short-term ‘bridging loans’ offered by banks to buyers of new homes who are waiting to receive the cash from selling another property, grew 14.3 per cent from a year ago to $71.8 billion, the fastest since October 2004. Over the month, the growth was 1.9 per cent, slightly slower than the 2 per cent growth in September.
Much of the period covered by latest data precedes the government’s withdrawal on Oct 26 of the deferred payment scheme for private property purchases, which was aimed at discouraging speculative buying.
David Conner, chief executive of OCBC Bank, said at the release of the group’s third-quarter results on Nov 6 that he expects to see an increase in demand for mortgages over the next two years, partly due to the withdrawal of the scheme, as buyers of new private homes will now have to pay a larger portion of the cost of a property while it is being built instead of deferring payments until the building is completed.
Meanwhile, loans to businesses in the building and construction sector rose 27.1 per cent over the year - the fastest since December 1996 - and 6 per cent over the month to $33.9 billion at end-October.
Total customer deposits grew 20.8 per cent over the year to $311.9 billion at end-October, while total loans grew just 15.5 per cent to $224.1 billion.
On a monthly basis, however, loans growth has outpaced growth in deposits since June. Over the month of October, loans grew 2.4 per cent compared to 1 per cent for deposits.
With the rapid expansion in loans, the ratio of loans to deposits in the banking system has recovered slightly to 71.8 per cent at the end of October, after falling as low as 67.1 per cent at end-May - the lowest in the published MAS data series, which started in Jan 1991.
Overall, loans to businesses grew at a faster pace than consumer loans, both on a monthly basis and when compared to a year ago.
Loans to businesses grew 18.5 per cent over the year and 2.6 per cent over the month to $120.1 billion. Other than the building and construction industry, the rapid growth in business loans was mainly due to expansion in loans to financial institutions and to the transport, storage and communications sector.
Meanwhile, consumer loans expanded 12.2 per cent over the year and 2.2 per cent over the month to $103.9 billion, driven mainly by the surge in home loans. Share financing and credit card lending also continued to grow, although these account for less than 8 per cent of total consumer loans.
The number of credit cards in circulation grew 15.3 per cent over the year and 2.4 per cent over the month to 4.45 million at end-October, excluding supplementary cards. But the total credit card rollover balance - that portion of the credit card debt that is subject to interest charges - dipped slightly over the month to $2.85 billion.
Source : Business Times - 1 Dec 2007
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) said it will set aside 60 hectares - the Marina South Residential District (MSRD) - for 11,000 homes.
A LOW-RISE eco-village, canal streets, a coastal shopping promenade and terraced communal green roofs - coupled with dramatic views and contrasting skylines. This is the living environment suggested by the winning entrants in a competition to get ideas on how Marina Bay should look.
In September, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) said it will set aside 60 hectares - the Marina South Residential District (MSRD) - for 11,000 homes.
A design competition to inspire innovative ideas to distinguish the area was announced at the same time.
When the competition closed on Nov 12, 30 entries had been received from local and overseas architects. Foreign submissions came from Hong Kong, Australia, Indonesia, India and the US.
Four schemes have been selected and another two received special mention. The winners are Hong Kong’s Compass Studio and Singapore’s Khoo Teik Rong, SKPS-Project and Surbana. Special mention was given to Australia’s Chor and Singapore’s ZONG Architects.
The four winners will get $10,000 and the two special mention schemes $5,000.
‘We are impressed with the numerous interesting and novel ideas from the competition,’ said URA’s director for urban planning and design Fun Siew Leng.
‘They will serve as a starting point to stimulate reflection and inspiration to develop Marina South into a distinctive waterfront garden district for generations to come.’
MSRD will also have 1.6 million sq ft set aside for hotel use and 678,000 sq ft of commercial space. The entire project will be developed over 15 to 20 years, once supporting infrastructure has been put in place.
Source : Business Times - 1 Dec 2007
In September, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) said it will set aside 60 hectares - the Marina South Residential District (MSRD) - for 11,000 homes.
A design competition to inspire innovative ideas to distinguish the area was announced at the same time.
When the competition closed on Nov 12, 30 entries had been received from local and overseas architects. Foreign submissions came from Hong Kong, Australia, Indonesia, India and the US.
Four schemes have been selected and another two received special mention. The winners are Hong Kong’s Compass Studio and Singapore’s Khoo Teik Rong, SKPS-Project and Surbana. Special mention was given to Australia’s Chor and Singapore’s ZONG Architects.
The four winners will get $10,000 and the two special mention schemes $5,000.
‘We are impressed with the numerous interesting and novel ideas from the competition,’ said URA’s director for urban planning and design Fun Siew Leng.
‘They will serve as a starting point to stimulate reflection and inspiration to develop Marina South into a distinctive waterfront garden district for generations to come.’
MSRD will also have 1.6 million sq ft set aside for hotel use and 678,000 sq ft of commercial space. The entire project will be developed over 15 to 20 years, once supporting infrastructure has been put in place.
Source : Business Times - 1 Dec 2007
Marina South Residential District
IT’S been a hazy vision up to now but the first stunning proposals for the Marina South Residential District, unveiled yesterday, indicate that a design revolution is brewing on Singapore’s waterfront.
The four proposals - picked from a design competition that attracted 30 entries from India to Australia - promise an intoxicating cocktail of architectural flamboyance and ecological innovation in what has been touted as Singapore’s future No. 1 residential hot spot.
It is the first time a design competition has been held as part of the planning process for a residential district here.
And the ideas thrown up have not been seen here before: They include elevated condominiums, terraced buildings resembling cascading gardens, and ‘floating’ housing blocks with Amsterdam-style canals.
The winners, who each get $10,000, include local architecture firm Surbana, Hong Kong’s Compass Studio and national serviceman Khoo Teik Rong, an architecture graduate from Melbourne’s RMIT University.
The designs remain just suggestions at this stage and may not be part of the final plan, but they serve as a striking starting point for the ambitious project.
The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) will now compile a final plan for the 60ha site, which will be developed over 15 to 20 years and will have up to 11,000 homes.
The competition, organised by the Singapore Institute of Architects (SIA) and the URA, asked entrants to unscramble what amounted to a Rubik’s cube of design challenges.
At the basic level, 11,000 housing units had to be incorporated with commercial, hotel and community facilities on a prime site near the upcoming Gardens at Marina South and Marina Bay Sands integrated resort.
But proposals had to show how high-density living could be achieved while retaining the ambience of a waterfront garden.
The judges also looked for environmental sustainability and a sense of community, while calling for designs that would allow Marina South to showcase the City in a Garden vision.
Mr Khoo, 23, drew on inspiration from a visit to Amsterdam and opted for canals to run through the site to make the area more intimate.
‘I didn’t want a site that would have only large-scale buildings,’ he said.
The Surbana team had a ‘green and blue’ strategy. Green in the form of plants on the roofs of low-rise buildings, which would be terraced to give the appearance of gardens sloping to the marina.
Blue covered their housing idea - 30- to 50-storey-high blocks placed on shallow pools, making them appear to float on water.
Compass Studio, meanwhile, used hills as its inspiration - it wanted high-rise buildings to resemble hills that meet the lower plains. It also proposed a low-rise eco-village.
The fourth winner was SKPS-Project, a group of five architects, mostly from Singapore. They proposed lifting residential blocks 30m above the ground and planting trees underneath.
Reacting to the designs, Mr Mink Tan of Mink Architects said they were visually evocative, with ‘a mix of everything’. ‘If done successfully, this can be a…shining example of Asian urban living.’
Ex-SIA president John Ting of AIM & Associates was encouraged by the designs, but said more refinement was needed. He suggested the land can be split into smaller parcels and various architects let loose: ‘Then we can learn how to work the land better.’
Property developers and consultants were more hardheaded, telling The Straits Times that it was too early to judge if the designs were commercially viable.
The 30 entries are on display at City Hall until Dec 8.
Source : Straits Times - 1 Dec 2007
The four proposals - picked from a design competition that attracted 30 entries from India to Australia - promise an intoxicating cocktail of architectural flamboyance and ecological innovation in what has been touted as Singapore’s future No. 1 residential hot spot.
It is the first time a design competition has been held as part of the planning process for a residential district here.
And the ideas thrown up have not been seen here before: They include elevated condominiums, terraced buildings resembling cascading gardens, and ‘floating’ housing blocks with Amsterdam-style canals.
The winners, who each get $10,000, include local architecture firm Surbana, Hong Kong’s Compass Studio and national serviceman Khoo Teik Rong, an architecture graduate from Melbourne’s RMIT University.
The designs remain just suggestions at this stage and may not be part of the final plan, but they serve as a striking starting point for the ambitious project.
The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) will now compile a final plan for the 60ha site, which will be developed over 15 to 20 years and will have up to 11,000 homes.
The competition, organised by the Singapore Institute of Architects (SIA) and the URA, asked entrants to unscramble what amounted to a Rubik’s cube of design challenges.
At the basic level, 11,000 housing units had to be incorporated with commercial, hotel and community facilities on a prime site near the upcoming Gardens at Marina South and Marina Bay Sands integrated resort.
But proposals had to show how high-density living could be achieved while retaining the ambience of a waterfront garden.
The judges also looked for environmental sustainability and a sense of community, while calling for designs that would allow Marina South to showcase the City in a Garden vision.
Mr Khoo, 23, drew on inspiration from a visit to Amsterdam and opted for canals to run through the site to make the area more intimate.
‘I didn’t want a site that would have only large-scale buildings,’ he said.
The Surbana team had a ‘green and blue’ strategy. Green in the form of plants on the roofs of low-rise buildings, which would be terraced to give the appearance of gardens sloping to the marina.
Blue covered their housing idea - 30- to 50-storey-high blocks placed on shallow pools, making them appear to float on water.
Compass Studio, meanwhile, used hills as its inspiration - it wanted high-rise buildings to resemble hills that meet the lower plains. It also proposed a low-rise eco-village.
The fourth winner was SKPS-Project, a group of five architects, mostly from Singapore. They proposed lifting residential blocks 30m above the ground and planting trees underneath.
Reacting to the designs, Mr Mink Tan of Mink Architects said they were visually evocative, with ‘a mix of everything’. ‘If done successfully, this can be a…shining example of Asian urban living.’
Ex-SIA president John Ting of AIM & Associates was encouraged by the designs, but said more refinement was needed. He suggested the land can be split into smaller parcels and various architects let loose: ‘Then we can learn how to work the land better.’
Property developers and consultants were more hardheaded, telling The Straits Times that it was too early to judge if the designs were commercially viable.
The 30 entries are on display at City Hall until Dec 8.
Source : Straits Times - 1 Dec 2007
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