The recent property measures announced by Singapore Property have taken the heated market one step back. While the impact to the real estate market is to be further assessed, the market may most probably cool down for the coming 6 months. The imposed stamp duty over the 3 years could be taken as capital gain tax as form of penalty if you resell the property within 3 years of buying, and the HDB owners market is definitely stifled as the owner have to stay the minimum 5 years period before they are able to purchase a private unit.

Therefore CDL must be very pleased that they have fully launched all developments at the Balestier and Thomson area before 31^st Aug 2010, the date that the measures are made effective. However it is not so to Popular Holding Ltd owning 2 plots of lands at the same area. Popular Holding targeted to launch its project, 8 Raja, later this year, consisting of 2 parcels of land at No. 8 Jalan Raja Udang, and 15 Jalan Datoh. In year 2007, Popular purchased all the strata units at View Point at Jalan Datoh  for $16.5mil and at Shiba Apartments at Jalan Raja Udang for $15.5 mil. For a company with household name that best known for its bookstores and schoolbooks, the venture into Singapore property has been viewed as rather testing and risky. We will see if the launch schedule will be as planned, or like several project launches, which have been delayed till hthe dusts have settled down.