According to the latest news, it seems that most of the new HDB flats that will be created in Singapore will be prefabricated as a whole. There are some reasons why the construction professionals are opting for this system. First, it’s designed to shorten the construction time. Not only that, but the overall costs are lowered too, and that is extremely important. Rooms will be created in factories and they will be assembled on site. They will even come with their own finishes.

Bathrooms will also be prefabricated in order to streamline the project. The construction time for such a project is around 3 years. The idea here is that contractors need to be familiar with the PPVC construction system.

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Adding solar panels is a crucial aspect at this time, because the solar craze is here and it’s as powerful as you can imagine. According to the latest industry sources, it seems that adding solar-ready roof is a very good idea and more and more housing blocks are using them. Which is actually a very good thing, because the HDB rooftops offer a lot of space for them. These blocks are built with the features needed to install these solar panels.

The primary focus here is to harness the solar energy as this can help deliver a lot more value to the HDB establishments. This can also help boost the overall costs, which is a crucial thing to take into consideration.

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Living in a large city does have its ups and downs, but the primary benefit that comes from living in Singapore is that the economy thrives and the city on its looks amazing, and it does manage to run itself well. In fact, according to a recent study, living in Singapore is even better than living in Hong Kong, something that does show the uniqueness and dedication offered by Singapore as a whole!

Hong Kong is now ranked 45^th, whereas Singapore is now 35^th in the list with the best livable cities in the world. That being said, it’s pretty impressive to see this ranking, specifically when Singapore shows its true power to people from all over the world. The jump in rankings comes from numerous improvements in the educational sector.

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According to numerous industry details, it seems that the Singapore manufacturers are not joking. They are working very hard at this time since the factory output has managed to go up with around 21% in July alone. This is a huge increase, and it mostly comes from the electronics sector. This is the brightest spot for the industry at this point.

The expectations were around 12.9%, so seeing this type of increase is always a nice thing to have in the industry. It’s the highest growth that the industry has seen in quite a while, and we may be able to expect something like that shortly for sure.

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We are now in the middle of a massive collective sale fever, and things are taking an impressive, good turn. The benefit here is that the Jervois Garden, which is a condo of around 17 apartments located on the River Valley road is up for sale.

Jervois Garden is set to be sold for around $68 million. Sure, this may not seem like a very good price, but you have to understand that Jervois Garden is a rather small establishment. It can bring in a huge profit for the owners, and that goes to show the sheer value that can be received from the collective sales at this time. Whether it will happen or not, it’s hard to say, but considering the recent collective sale fever, the Jervois Garden sale price can end up being even higher.

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At this time, there is a huge collective sale fever that you can find in Singapore. But there is also a downside here. The DC rates used for the non-landed residential use are very high at this point. They raised with around 13.8%, which is a pretty high increase.
The DC rates are up in almost all the geographical sectors, some with just 6%, while others go up to 29%. The increase seems minimal, but it goes to show that the DC rates are getting pretty high. And yes, the developers have to pay them to enhance the use of some sites, same goes if they want to build some larger projects in there as well.

15 residential estates were put in collective sale, and only half were successful. The DC rate increase does manage to affect even many sales, and the developers do need to raise the price to get a good profit.

Some developers are offering lower prices to get some leasehold properties via a collective, something that does discourage owners to put them for a collective sale. The raise is something expected according to the head of consultancy and research at JLL Singapore. But even if this may not seem problematic, it’s safe to say that there can be some rather problematic situations shortly.

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Holland Village, or Holland V as it is affectionately shortened to by those who call it home, has built itself a reputation as one of the go to places in Singapore when it comes to restaurants and bars. Its popularity is among both expats and locals, something that is reflected in the choice of dining options and watering holes, that range from a 24-hour kopitiam, a market and hawker centre, to many western bars, restaurants and chains – and everything in between. It was not always the case however.

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2017 was a great year from many developers in Singapore, as they received the much-desired BCA Award. In fact, BCA or the Building and Constructions Authority had to issue a record number of awards this year, due to the fact that a greater number of developers strived to provide high workmanship quality and therefore to enhance the way Singapore looks when it comes to buildings and various constructions. On the 13^th of June 2017, no less than 493 developers got their BCA award, for their extraordinary activity involving not only the development work, but also domains like architecture, design, engineering, and construction.

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The pay gap between genders in Singapore saw the last improvements in 2006, not changing ever since

Although we would expect things to change and evolve, there are some aspects that don’t seem to be bothered by the passing of time. For instance, the pay gap between genders has not recorded any change or improvement in the past decade. Just like it has been since 2006, men in Singapore earn more money than women, the gap being of approximately 20% in the favor of men, even though the job requirements are the same. Unfortunately, a gap of 20% is the best case scenario, statistics showing that there are industries where this gap reached 40%, which is a rather significant difference made between genders in the workplace.

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Starting from the next June, the updated Fire Codes released highlighted that all the newly built houses including all the boarding, apartments and private residences should make provisions for smoke detectors and fire alarms. These smoke alarms come in different qualities and levels and a basic smoke alarm costs between 60 to 80 dollars where an additional cost of close to 50 dollars will have to be borne for installation.

The costs associated with fixing these alarms will have to be borne by the buyers. However, the lower-income families, the needy households or the elderly who are in need of financial support will be looked into by the SCDF which is also known as Singapore Civil Defense Force.

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Collective sales are bound to get big at times, but the reality is that this year was the host of some pretty big collective sales to begin with. But nothing seems to beat the recent Tampines Court sale, which ended up at around 970 million Singapore dollars. This is the biggest En Bloc sale for the past 10 years.

This is one of the largest sales since the Farrer Court sale in 2007, which was around 1.34 billion. But there are some reasons why this collective sale was so successful, to begin with. Tampines Court is found on Tampines Street 11, and the plot of land is really large, it has around 702000 square feet.

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This 2.2km long road is one of the most famous in Asia, if not the world, and as well as Marina Bay, is considered by many residents to be the hub of the island. That was not always the case though, and the area which today boasts some of the most exclusive shopping anywhere on the globe has gone through several different transformations over the last two centuries. The area was originally home to uncaria (known locally as gambier), pepper and nutmeg plantations and then as the name suggests, orchards of fruit trees. Then in the mid to late 1840’s, graveyards became a feature of the road that had been cut over a decade before. As well as a large Chinese graveyard, there was also a Sumatran burial ground and a Jewish cemetery – which survived until the building of Dhoby Ghaut MRT Station in 1984.

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The Geylang Lease Expiration – a Sign of Things to Come?

Residents of 191 homes in Geylang are set to make history, but not in a way they would have liked, when they will be the first in Singapore to have their properties and land returned to the state when their lease expires. The row of private leasehold terrace houses situated in Geylang Lorong 3 were each sold on a 60 year lease in 1960 – the shortest issued by the SLA for residential properties on the island, with the land returning to state ownership on the 31st December 2020. Of the 191 properties, 33 are currently owner occupied, with the rest being rented out to foreign workers or temple operators. Those 33 will have to have completely vacated the premises by the end of the lease, including their furniture and belongings, as well having settled up all bills relating to the address.

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In the construction industry, many companies have bided for private condominium projects at rates that are incredibly low in order to make sure that their services will be engaged. While you may be tempted to think that this is a good thing, managing to construct a structure for less money, we should all be worried about the quality provided in these cases.

It is almost impossible to offer high-quality when you are bound to deliver a project within a very small budget. Besides the workforce, the price is usually dictated by the quality of materials a developer uses, which can’t be too great if you’re looking to have small prices and win a bid this way.

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Singapore’s Housing and Development Board (HDB) has observed that there were as many as four interested buyers for each re-offered balance flat available. The HDB gave a comment on August 1 this year about the flats saying that 71 percent were ready for use. An individual can also acquire a unit through the HDB’s BTO (Build-To-Order) program. Comparing BTO and ROF reveals that the Re-offer of Balance Flats is more popular than the BTO. While both forms of housing were availed on August 1, ROF comes from the pooling of unsold flat units from the previous year’s November SBF also known as Sale of Balance Flats.

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