Issue 372

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 CONTENTS FROM THE

p2 Singapore Has the World’s Lowest Fertility

EDITOR
Welcome to the 372th edition of the
Singapore Property Weekly.
Rate – Accept It
Hope you like it!
p9 Resale Property Transactions
Mr. Propwise
(September 20 – September 28)

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 SINGAPORE PROPERTY WEEKLY Issue 372

Singapore Has the World’s Lowest Fertility Rate – Accept It

By Property Soul (guest contributor)

Recently a Straits Times article said

Singapore’s total fertility rate plunged to a
seven-year low of 1.16 last year. It is well
below the replacement rate of 2.1.

Do you know that Singapore has the lowest

fertility rate in the world?

According to the 2017 World Factbook

published by the Central Intelligence Agency,
the four countries with the lowest total fertility
rate in the world are namely Singapore (0.83),
Macau (0.95), Taiwan (1.13) and Hong Kong
(1.19).

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 SINGAPORE PROPERTY WEEKLY Issue 372
Our neighbour Malaysia obviously has much
higher “productivity”. It occupies the 80th
position in a list of 224 countries from high to
low fertility.
6.9 million by 2030 is just a dream
There is another Straits Times article on the
same day with the title “Total population
5.64m, with number of citizens up 1% to
3.47m”.
Singapore’s total population has increased
0.5 percent to reach 5.64 million in June this
year. This is already a big improvement
compared with 0.1 percent rise last year.
The number of citizen births in 2017 is
32,356, a 2.4 per cent drop from 2016.
The PR population has remained stable over
the last five years, hovering between 0.52
and 0.53 million. Non-resident population has
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fallen from 1.67 million in 2016 to 1.64 million
today.
Even if our population inches 0.5 percent for
the next two years, Singapore will at most
have 5.7 million people by June 2020.
As I have said in my blog post “Singapore’s
latest demographics: what it means for
housing”, unless the government starts
importing 150,000 foreigners a year from
tomorrow, we will be far from the Population
White Paper’s original target to hit 6 million by
2020.
The population trends of low birth rate,
stagnant growth and aging population are
here to stay.
Yet many in the real estate industry are still
indulging in relentless building and marketing
of new homes in the Little Red Dot, as if there
was a real need to house 6.9 million by 2030.
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 SINGAPORE PROPERTY WEEKLY Issue 372
Our government’s approach on low birth
rate
Whenever data shows Singapore has
miserable birth rate, the local media will react
by advocating the importance of marriage,
children and family.
The last time was in July when The Straits
Times featured a series of stories about how
young parents enjoy family life with their big
family.
Readers were brainwashed with articles titled
“Supersized families: More couples in
Singapore are not stopping at two”; “More
families having four or more children”;
“Married for 18 years, with 10 children – and
counting”; “Family joy from 7 kids, four of
whom have special needs”; “When three kids
are still not enough” …
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We don’t have to run a census to know that
large young families in Singapore are
exceptional cases these days.
We don’t need a crystal ball to see that late
marriages, more singles and less children per
couple will be here to stay.
We don’t need a Sociology degree to
understand that Singapore’s low fertility and
aging population are the inevitable result of
being a developed country.
According to the World Factbook, out of the
top twenty countries with high total fertility
rate, almost all of them are in Africa.
But our ministers responsible for family
planning don’t seem to see this. Our
government and local media continue to deal
with a modern problem using a dated
approach.
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 SINGAPORE PROPERTY WEEKLY Issue 372
Embracing traditional values is
commendable. But we also need the wisdom
to tell the difference between an ideal world
and a practical world.
“Do not cling to anything that will eventually
cease to exist. No matter how much time or
energy or money you invest in it, once
something is gone, it is gone forever.”
– Jim Rogers, A Gift To My Children
How effective are the goodies?
Have we done enough to encourage
Singaporeans to have more babies? How
effective are these measures?
Mothers who are citizens are entitled to 16
weeks of government-paid maternity leave
while fathers are given two weeks of paternity
leave.
In Taiwan and Hong Kong, mothers are only
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entitled to 8 and 10 weeks of maternity leave
respectively. Fathers take just a 3-day
paternity leave.
The Singapore government is also generous
in giving out baby bonuses and topping up
Child Development Accounts.
Besides, Singapore is the best country in the
world for children to grow up in. According to
the study, Singapore performs well in all the
eight judging criteria: under-five mortality rate,
child stunting, out-of-school children and
youth, child labour, child marriage, adolescent
birth rate, population displaced by conflict,
and child homicide rate.
Isn’t it ironic that our fertility rate is still the
lowest in the world?
Our older generations saw marriage and
raising children as a stage of life and a
personal responsibility.
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 SINGAPORE PROPERTY WEEKLY Issue 372
They never received any incentive from the
government or assistance from their
workplace.
If the government believes that the more
goodies they give out, the more motivated the
people to have babies, it is fighting a losing
battle.
Because no amount of bonus can lessen the
pain of a mother during childbirth. No amount
of top-up can compensate for the time and
effort of a parent to raise a child.
We want to have our cake and eat it too
Singapore strives to be number one in
everything. We aspire to be the hub of all
major industries and future technologies.
So we train and require our children, workers,
employees and SMEs to be competitive,
efficient and productive. Our country is highly
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focused on results and achievements. Our
society measures success according to
wealth and social status.
Yet when it comes to fertility, we ask our
young generation to take it easy on their
work, spend time dating, start a family early,
and go for more children.
Can’t anyone see that we are asking the
same small group of citizens to commit to two
self-conflicting and equally time-consuming
activities simultaneously in a short time span?
Every year when the population brief shows a
falling birth rate and lower population growth,
news articles will conveniently put the blame
on late marriages and singles.
The Straits Times article said the biggest
proportion of women staying single is in the
prime childbearing years of 25 to 29.
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 SINGAPORE PROPERTY WEEKLY Issue 372
Is this “prime childbearing years” relevant to
Singapore?
I remember years ago my confinement lady
told me that, in her twenty years’ of
confinement assignments in Singapore, she
never had any client under the age of 30,
except one who had a shotgun marriage in
her early twenties.
When starting a family becomes a matter
of choice
If you are single, you only have one problem:
Being asked why you are single and you may
be lonely.
If you are married, you will still be lonely. The
difference is you have no time to deal with
your loneliness.
From the moment you say yes, you are busy
with wedding, house hunting, renovation,
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mortgage, having babies, childcare, tuition,
PSLE …
If you are a woman, you are given additional
responsibilities of conceiving, pregnancy,
delivery, confinement, breastfeeding, raising
children, in-laws, house chores, domestic
helpers, another pregnancy – while trying to
balance your life as a working mother.
You learn to excel in every responsibility as
an employee, a wife, a mother, a daughter
and a daughter-in-law. For all the time, effort,
sweat, tears, blood, compromise and sacrifice
over two decades, you can almost build a
business empire.
Other women are also doing the same. You
are doing your “national service” as a woman
in this “infertile” land.
Your job has no promotion, no CPF, no
annual leave, no reimbursement, no fringe
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 SINGAPORE PROPERTY WEEKLY Issue 372

benefit, no package, no bonus, no dividend,
no pay, no nothing. You are required to work
24×7 with no day off. Yet you won’t be
allowed to quit, resign or change job.
The fact is: You must really love this job to
apply for it and carry on till the very end.
The reality is: The new generation knows that
they have the choice to decide whether and
when they marry and have babies. This is
unlike last time when people think they should
do it because everybody else is doing it.
If more people choose not to have babies, do
you still want to have children?
If the majority are singles, do you still want to
get married?
Even if some choose to be single or childless,
there will always be others who go for it.
If Singapore has chosen the path of elitism,
why can’t we accept the resulting population
trend and learn to live with it?
Just as an economist from the Singapore
University of Social Sciences said: “If you
have zero or negative population growth, we
would have to radically restructure the way
we deal with major policies. For example,
some things we take for granted, like new
Housing Board flats, may no longer be built
because there are not enough people to live
in them.”
It’s time we stopped dreaming about a 6.9
million population and planned our housing
for a stagnant and aging population.
By guest contributor Property Soul, a
successful property investor, blogger, and
author of the No B.S. Guide to Property
Investment.

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 SINGAPORE PROPERTY WEEKLY Issue 372

Non-Landed Residential Resale Property Transactions for the Week of Sep 20 – Sep 28

Postal Area Transacted Price Postal Area Transacted Price

Project Name Tenure Project Name Tenure
District (sqft) Price ($) ($ psf) District (sqft) Price ($) ($ psf)
1 ROBINSON SUITES 1,087 2,700,000 2,484 FH 9 8 @ MOUNT SOPHIA 1,442 2,150,000 1,491 103
3 THE CREST 807 1,699,000 2,105 99 9 ORCHARD TOWERS 1,970 2,800,000 1,421 FH
3 ASCENTIA SKY 1,475 1,970,000 1,336 99 9 8 @ MOUNT SOPHIA 1,539 2,080,000 1,351 103
3 TANGLIN VIEW 1,152 1,500,000 1,302 99 10 LEEDON RESIDENCE 2,131 4,900,000 2,299 FH
4 THE INTERLACE 1,873 2,480,000 1,324 99 10 STELLAR RV 538 950,000 1,765 FH
5 JUBILEE RESIDENCE 495 690,000 1,394 FH 10 THE BALMORAL SPRING 1,119 1,950,000 1,742 FH
5 THE PARC CONDOMINIUM 1,292 1,780,000 1,378 FH 10 D'LEEDON 1,399 2,250,000 1,608 99
5 THE VISION 1,302 1,450,000 1,113 99 10 D'LEEDON 1,615 2,460,000 1,524 99
5 BLUE HORIZON 926 966,000 1,044 99 10 THE TESSARINA 1,249 1,830,000 1,466 FH
5 BLUE HORIZON 1,152 1,200,000 1,042 99 10 MONTVIEW 3,412 3,780,000 1,108 FH
7 SOUTH BEACH RESIDENCES 1,593 5,400,000 3,390 99 11 SOLEIL @ SINARAN 958 1,740,000 1,816 99
7 SOUTH BEACH RESIDENCES 1,625 5,376,000 3,308 99 11 LUCIDA 1,098 1,650,000 1,503 FH
8 CITY SQUARE RESIDENCES 1,216 1,700,000 1,398 FH 11 THE AXIS 398 583,000 1,464 FH
8 SUITES 123 581 747,500 1,286 FH 11 ROCHELLE AT NEWTON 1,701 2,480,000 1,458 99
9 THE MARQ ON PATERSON HILL 3,089 9,750,000 3,156 FH 12 PRESTIGE HEIGHTS 334 570,000 1,708 FH
9 MARTIN NO 38 969 2,400,000 2,477 FH 12 EIGHT RIVERSUITES 840 1,270,000 1,513 99
9 THE METZ 570 1,360,000 2,384 FH 12 THE VIRIDIAN 893 1,300,000 1,455 FH
9 THE PATERSON EDGE 1,281 3,050,000 2,381 FH 12 D'LOTUS 570 818,000 1,434 FH
9 ESPADA 667 1,520,000 2,278 FH 12 NOVA 48 861 1,130,000 1,312 FH
9 THE BEAUMONT 1,475 2,880,000 1,953 FH 12 OLEANDER TOWERS 893 990,000 1,108 99
9 LEONIE SUITES 926 1,720,000 1,858 99 12 BELMONDO VIEW 1,313 1,380,000 1,051 FH
9 ROBERTSON 100 883 1,600,000 1,813 FH 13 8@WOODLEIGH 861 1,230,000 1,428 99
9 LUMA 1,173 2,060,000 1,756 FH 13 PARC MONDRIAN 1,195 1,580,000 1,322 FH
9 8 @ MOUNT SOPHIA 1,378 2,100,000 1,524 103 14 GUILLEMARD SUITES 560 855,000 1,528 FH

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 SINGAPORE PROPERTY WEEKLY Issue 372

Postal Area Transacted Price Postal Area Transacted Price

Project Name Tenure Project Name Tenure
District (sqft) Price ($) ($ psf) District (sqft) Price ($) ($ psf)
14 THE TRUMPS 614 800,000 1,304 99 18 TROPICAL SPRING 1,335 1,210,000 907 99
14 PAYA LEBAR RESIDENCES 1,292 1,608,000 1,245 FH 18 LIVIA 1,410 1,240,000 879 99
14 VACANZA @ EAST 1,033 1,280,000 1,239 FH 18 SAVANNAH CONDOPARK 1,453 1,268,888 873 99
14 ESCADA VIEW 1,163 1,110,000 955 FH 19 CASA CAMBIO 409 610,000 1,491 FH
15 ARTHUR 118 926 1,415,000 1,529 FH 19 RESIDENCES BOTANIQUE 1,184 1,510,000 1,275 FH
15 RIVEREDGE 1,012 1,520,000 1,502 99 19 LA FIESTA 990 1,150,000 1,161 99
15 JUPITER 18 431 620,000 1,440 FH 19 KOVAN MELODY 1,302 1,500,000 1,152 99
15 ONE EIGHTIES RESIDENCES 1,238 1,750,000 1,414 FH 19 TERRASSE 657 740,000 1,127 99
15 HAIG COURT 1,442 2,020,000 1,400 FH 19 RIVERSOUND RESIDENCE 904 950,000 1,051 99
15 SEASIDE PARK 592 738,000 1,247 999 19 CHILTERN PARK 915 960,000 1,049 99
15 THE MONTAGE 1,098 1,300,000 1,184 FH 19 FONTAINE PARRY 1,991 2,018,000 1,013 999
15 ELLIOT AT THE EAST COAST 2,142 2,450,000 1,144 FH 20 THOMSON V TWO 474 705,000 1,489 FH
16 URBAN VISTA 850 1,200,000 1,411 99 20 GOLDENHILL PARK CONDOMINIUM 1,561 2,250,000 1,442 FH
16 CHANGI GREEN 1,055 1,020,000 967 FH 20 COUNTRY GRANDEUR 1,442 1,860,000 1,290 FH
16 EAST MEADOWS 1,195 1,150,000 963 99 20 GRANDEUR 8 1,227 1,270,000 1,035 99
16 AQUARIUS BY THE PARK 1,206 1,135,600 942 99 20 THE GARDENS AT BISHAN 1,582 1,585,000 1,002 99
17 THE INFLORA 474 540,000 1,140 99 20 THE GARDENS AT BISHAN 1,798 1,560,000 868 99
17 COASTAL BREEZE RESIDENCES 947 820,000 866 99 21 THE CASCADIA 1,044 1,680,000 1,609 FH
17 LOYANG VALLEY 1,991 1,450,000 728 99 21 THE HILLFORD 398 500,800 1,257 60
17 CARISSA PARK CONDOMINIUM 1,335 950,000 712 FH 21 SYMPHONY HEIGHTS 969 1,210,000 1,249 FH
18 Q BAY RESIDENCES 797 923,000 1,159 99 21 THE HILLSIDE 1,044 1,250,000 1,197 FH
18 DOUBLE BAY RESIDENCES 1,270 1,441,000 1,135 99 21 SOUTHAVEN I 1,076 1,058,000 983 99
18 DOUBLE BAY RESIDENCES 1,367 1,520,000 1,112 99 21 N.A. 915 410,000 448 99
18 D'NEST 753 830,000 1,102 99 22 J GATEWAY 474 880,000 1,858 99
18 THE PALETTE 893 930,000 1,041 99 23 ECO SANCTUARY 700 890,000 1,272 99
18 NV RESIDENCES 743 758,000 1,021 99 23 HAZEL PARK CONDOMINIUM 980 1,150,000 1,174 999
18 Q BAY RESIDENCES 1,033 1,030,000 997 99 23 HILLVIEW REGENCY 1,195 1,125,000 942 99

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 SINGAPORE PROPERTY WEEKLY Issue 372

Postal Area Transacted Price

Project Name Tenure
District (sqft) Price ($) ($ psf)
23 GUILIN VIEW 1,259 1,005,000 798 99
23 PARKVIEW APARTMENTS 1,119 815,000 728 99
25 ROSEWOOD SUITES 990 785,000 793 99
26 BULLION PARK 1,259 1,420,000 1,128 FH
27 EIGHT COURTYARDS 1,227 1,195,000 974 99
27 THE ESTUARY 1,528 1,460,000 955 99
27 THE ESTUARY 926 880,000 951 99
28 RIVERBANK @ FERNVALE 495 590,000 1,192 99
28 SELETAR PARK RESIDENCE 1,076 1,150,000 1,068 99
28 MIMOSA PARK 2,153 1,938,000 900 FH

NOTE: This data only covers non-landed residential resale property

transactions with caveats lodged with the Singapore Land Authority.
Typically, caveats are lodged at least 2-3 weeks after a purchaser
signs an OTP, hence the lagged nature of the data.

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