According to latest reports on the Singapore property market, the number of private homes sold soared to a 14-month high in January 2012, indicating that housing demand remained buoyant, contrary to expectations of a slowdown in housing market activity due to the implementation of ABSD (additional buyer stamp duty) in December 2011. Indeed, ABSD appears to have had a muted effect on reining in demand for mass market properties, and recent launches such as the Watertown and the Hillier selling extremely well, and approx 90% of sales going to Singaporeans.
As to be expected, none of the articles published and none of the experts quoted have made any detailed analysis of the state of credit expansion as a facilitator or driver of housing demand and housing prices. Economist Steve Keen and other analysts have argued (see references below) that the real explanation for rising house prices is rising credit. To be more precise, what drives the change in house prices is the acceleration of mortgage debt. The acceleration of debt has been dubbed "the credit impulse" by Michael Biggs et al, and more recently termed the "credit accelerator" by Keen.
Showing posts with label Housing Debt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Housing Debt. Show all posts
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Sunday, September 04, 2011
Debt Watch - Singapore
Following in the footsteps of the debt master Professor Steve Keen, I am starting an amateur analysis of Singapore's debt levels and debt trends.
The first chart for analysis is a plot of Singapore's consumer housing debt - as extended by banks (data from MAS) vs Singapore's GDP (singstat). I am able to get only four data points from singstat for GDP (if anybody knows how i can get a more detailed time series pls let me know), nevertheless a plot of housing debt vs. GDP shows a clear trend:
There is a major omission from this chart, and that is the debt that is extended by HDB to purchasers of HDB flats. MAS only releases data of loans made by banks, and not loans made by HDB. So we have to use educated guessing estimate the HDB debt. (if anybody knows how i can get my hands on this data, please let me know. thanks)
The first chart for analysis is a plot of Singapore's consumer housing debt - as extended by banks (data from MAS) vs Singapore's GDP (singstat). I am able to get only four data points from singstat for GDP (if anybody knows how i can get a more detailed time series pls let me know), nevertheless a plot of housing debt vs. GDP shows a clear trend:
There is a major omission from this chart, and that is the debt that is extended by HDB to purchasers of HDB flats. MAS only releases data of loans made by banks, and not loans made by HDB. So we have to use educated guessing estimate the HDB debt. (if anybody knows how i can get my hands on this data, please let me know. thanks)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)