The presence of Chinese home buyers in Singapore could grow further, as authorities in Hong Kong and the mainland look to curb property speculation.
According to property consultancy DTZ, the Chinese accounted for 20 percent of private home transactions involving permanent residents (PRs) and foreigners in the third quarter of the year, the highest since official data was made available from 1995.
The Chinese were the second largest group of non-Singaporean buyers, together with Indonesians. Malaysians clinched the top spot with a 21 percent share, while Indians occupied fourth spot with 14 percent.
Overall, PRs and foreigners comprised 23 percent of the 7,888 private home transactions in Q3.
Singaporeans acquired the majority of homes with a 73 percent share, while companies accounted for the remaining 3 percent.
DTZ said the presence of Chinese buyers has grown considerably since 2007, making up 17 percent of non-Singaporean private home buyers in Q2 and occupying the third spot behind Malaysians and Indonesians.
Their share of transactions “may go up further as recent property market curbs in China could prompt more mainland Chinese buyers to turn their attention overseas”, said DTZ.
The central government announced a series of property cooling measures in the past few months, including larger down payments for homes, higher interest rates and suspension of mortgages for third homes. A property tax is now understood to be on the cards.
Hong Kong has also intensified its efforts to curb property speculation.
The authorities recently enforced a special stamp duty on real estate transactions with short holding periods, which means that those reselling their homes within six months would be taxed up to 15 percent of the total transaction amount.
Ong Teck Hui, executive director of Credo Real Estate, said Chinese home buyers are perhaps expecting limited upside from investing in property in their country with the introduction of more property measures, prompting them to turn to Singapore.
He added that a number of Chinese also acquire Hong Kong properties, thus changes there would also have an impact.