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Property measures aimed at speculators, not genuine buyers: Mah

Monday 14 February

The latest property measures are very targeted at the short-term speculators, not at genuine buyers, Mah Bow Tan, Singapore's Minister for National Development told Parliament on Monday.

'So our measures in January are pre-emptive measures because we wanted to act before the bubble forms. It was calibrated so as to cool the market and it was very targeted at the short-term speculators, not at genuine buyers,' Mr Mah said in reply to a query on the intended end objective of the measures.

Mr Mah said that it is not the intention of the lastest measures to crash the market but rather to cool the market.

He added that given the current situation of strong economic growth, low interest rates and lots of liquidity in the market, it is not unnatural to expect that property prices remain strong.

Mr Mah said the government does not wish to see prices shooting up so fast as to be unsupportable by the fundamentals. At the same time, it does not want to see a lot of short time speculation either.

'So if we meet these objectives, the measures would have done their job,' Mr Mah said.

Source: Business Times Breaking News