More real estate firms in Singapore are anticipating a less favourable scenario in the second half of 2015, according to the latest Business Expectations Survey for the Services Sector conducted by the Department of Statistics.
Within the services sector, all the industries except for property and wholesale trade are upbeat about what’s in store for the last six months of the year.
“Developers continue to cite the series of government measures, including the Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty (ABSD) and the Total Debt Servicing Ratio (TDSR) framework, as the reasons for their negative outlook,” said the report.
In particular, only two percent of property firms have an optimistic forecast, 21 percent are bearish, while 77 percent see no change in the business climate.
This resulted in a net weighted balance of -19 percent compared to -17 percent in the previous survey conducted three months ago.
A net weighted balance is the difference between the weighted percentages of respondents who are bullish and those who are expecting more challenging times ahead. A positive figure indicates an upward trend while a negative number denotes weakening sentiment.
The study involved around 1,500 enterprises within Singapore’s services sector and was carried out from June to mid-July 2015.
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Singapore Editor at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this or other stories email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
