As the Singapore dollar continues to soften against the greenback, a benchmark that’s used to price most of the housing loans here more than doubled yesterday, media reports said.
In fact, the three-month Singapore Interbank Offered Rate (SIBOR) surged 102 percent to 0.786 percent on Monday compared to the low of 0.389 percent in February 2014. The last time the benchmark reached this level was back in January 2009.
This means home buyers who took out mortgage loans based on this benchmark would be paying heftier monthly instalments.
Meanwhile, one US dollar was equivalent to S$1.364 on Monday from S$1.32 at the start of the year. The last time the exchange rate rose to this level was in August 2010.
A Bloomberg report last Thursday also revealed that the Singapore dollar lost 7.3 percent of its value against the US currency over the past six months. Although this represents the third-worst performance in Southeast Asia, it gained against the euro, yen and the ringgit.
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Singapore Editor at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this or other stories email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
