The lobbying namely by consultants, developers and real estate agencies for the Government to moderate property market cooling measures by doing away with ABSD has been growing louder (“Cut second-home ABSD for citizens as market slides”; Feb 3). However, is their call really warranted at this early stage of the stabilising period? Prices of private and HDB properties have barely corrected a few percentage points since the last measures were implemented. Interest rates for home financing have also not really witnessed a significant uptrend. US interest rates are still benign, despite the end of the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing (QE), and other major economies are implementing various forms of QE.... Continue Reading