Singapore Home Prices Fall, Extending Decline to 14th Quarter

(Bloomberg) -- Singapore home prices fell in the first three months of the year, extending the drop in property values to a record 14th quarter.

An index tracking private residential prices fell 0.5 percent in the three months ended March 31 from the previous quarter, according to preliminary data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority released Monday. The three-and-a-half-year decline is the longest since the data was first published in 1975.

The government last month rolled back some property-market curbs for the first time after imposing a series of ever-stricter curbs to arrest home-price growth. The residential curbs have included a cap on debt-repayment costs at 60 percent of a borrower's monthly income, and higher stamp duties on home purchases, after low interest rates and demand from foreign buyers raised concern prices had risen too far too fast.

Home values have dropped 11.7 percent from their 2013 peak, and sales have declined to about half that year's level.

To contact the reporter on this story: Pooja Thakur in Singapore at pthakur@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sree Vidya Bhaktavatsalam at sbhaktavatsa@bloomberg.net, Peter Vercoe