The public can now access information such as discounts and rebates offered by developers to home buyers, media reports said.
This comes after the Ministry of National Development (MND) made it a requirement for property developers to submit detailed transaction data to the Controller of Housing on a weekly basis.
The information includes sales volumes and transacted prices of individual units as well as the value of any benefits offered to buyers – such as direct discounts, absorption of stamp duty fees and furniture vouchers.
Such data is then published weekly on the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s (URA) website, which started from last Friday, 5 June.
Notably, a new nett price column has been added to show the rebates and discounts for individual transactions.
One property expert noted that the nett-price data will help home buyers view the property’s actual cost.
“(Buyers) will be able to see not only the transacted price, but also the nett price, with all the consideration of the benefits given to the buyer. So from there, (the buyer) will have a better gauge of the overall pricing,” shared OrangeTee’s managing director Steven Tan.
And while the new rules will provide buyers with a more updated picture of the private property market, an analyst warned that buyers should be careful not to generalise the property market.
“What buyers need to take care of is that they need to harvest all this information for project-specific details, rather than as a general indication of what the property market at large is like,” said Chia Siew Chuin, director of research and advisory at Colliers International.
“Property trends take time to form. So on a weekly basis, buyers may not be able to know exactly where … the market at large … is heading. So buyers need to be careful on that point,” she added.
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Singapore Editor at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this or other stories email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
