As real estate companies cry for help for rehabilitative funding, slowdown in the operations has been felt since the start of the global recession. The construction sector has posted minimal improvements and many priority projects have been put on hold status.
Keppel Land, the third largest property group by market capitalisation in Singapore, has noted an 88 percent decline in its last quarter earnings in 2008, which resulted to a 70.8 percent decrease in the year-end net profit.
The recognised developer is believed to be the messenger of negative news while other property firms have yet to submit their companies’ results in the coming weeks. They are anticipating that the report will have a lower year-on-year sales earnings in Singapore and abroad.
Deutsche Bank Analysts Gregory Lui and Elaine Khoo noted that the firm’s outlook posted challenging forecast with dimming visibility of the transactions within Singapore and international trading.
Other real estate firms are expecting similar projections for their 2008 earnings. Earlier reports claimed that the Goldman Sachs said the 2009 and 2010 projections for earnings of property firms might give alarming results.
Some analysts like Paul Lian and Natasha Parchani have lowered their 2009 to 2010 earnings calculations because of delayed launches and ongoing slow sales for these years.
On the lighter note, postponement of stamp duties and delayed payments of property tax rebates may be positive approaches in mitigating the expenses of the industry. Many developers are hoping that these can boost the operations of the industry at its normal levels.
With the property tax rebate of 40 percent given to the industrial and commercial properties in 2009, this has been a move welcomed by the industry seen to tone down the developers’ operating costs and cash burden.