Monitoring of Bulk Purchases of Private Property by Non-Singaporeans

109 Mr Yip Hon Weng asked the Minister for National Development (a) whether the Ministry monitors bulk purchases of non-restricted private property by non-Singaporeans; and (b) whether the Ministry will introduce measures to assure Singaporeans who aspire to purchase private property that they will be able to do so without worrying about being priced out by the property market.

Mr Desmond Lee: The Government monitors the property market closely, as part of our efforts to promote a stable and sustainable property market.

In general, foreigners account for a small proportion of private housing transactions. Foreigners accounted for around 3% of transactions so far this year, and only 0.4% of transactions involve foreigners purchasing more than one unit within a development.

Given the upward market momentum in prices and transaction volumes in the property market last year, we had introduced a suite of demand and supply measures to cool the property market in December 2021. These included raising the Additional Buyers’ Stamp Duty, tightening the Total Debt Servicing Ratio and increasing the supply of private housing through the Government Land Sales programme. We are monitoring the impact of these cooling measures and will make further adjustments to our property market policies as necessary, to promote a stable and sustainable property market.