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Straits Times: Mon, Jul 30 PRIVATE banks are starting to feature more strongly in the demand for recent preference share and bond issuances. Experts believe that with the prolonged economic uncertainty, many more investors are turning to bonds or similar investment instruments to achieve a better yield than bank deposits, and also to escape the volatility in the stock market. For instance, just two weeks ago, Mapletree Treasury Services, which is wholly owned by Temasek Holdings, issued $600 million worth of perpetual securities, with private banks snapping up 70 per cent of the issue. For Olam's $275 million perpetual bond offering, private banks accounted for close to 80 per cent of the book. Also, Australian real estate management group Lend Lease saw 43 per cent of its $275 million worth of bonds bought by private banks. Mr Keith Magnus, chairman and head of UBS Investment Banking, Singapore and Malaysia, said: 'We are seeing an increasin

Business Times: Sat, Jul 28 PROPERTY buyers have been wising up to more attractive deals for private homes in the secondary market compared with pricey launches by developers of late. Latest government figures show a 58 per cent or 1,281-unit quarter-on-quarter increase in resales or secondary market transactions of completed private homes to 3,487 units in Q2, which made up for a decline of 17.2 per cent or 1,124 units in developer sales to 5,402 units from the record Q1 volume of 6,526 units. The stronger resale demand probably led to prices of completed non-landed private homes faring better than uncompleted ones in Q2. Urban Redevelopment Authority's Q2 numbers also threw up what could be an early sign of buyer-fatigue setting in for shoebox apartments. The number of small-format units (up to 50 sq metres/538 sq ft) sold by developers tumbled from 1,764 in Q1 to 1,038 in Q2. Their share of the total number of private homes sold by developers also slipped

Straits Times: Sat, Jul 28 DEVELOPERS appear to be lowering the prices of their launches, with fresh figures showing prices for uncompleted homes falling slightly in the second quarter. Data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority showed that prices of uncompleted non-landed homes dipped 0.9 per cent in the three months to June - the first fall since mid-2009. Prices for completed private homes, however, climbed 2.3 per cent. Experts say the fall could be explained by the fact that some launches in the period were in less desirable locations, including those further from MRT stations and amenities, thus fetching lower prices. Another factor they cited is that some of the new launches were in estates such as Punggol and Pasir Ris, where many projects had already been pushed out. This led to stiff competition and more conservative pricing. Mr Png Poh Soon, head of research at Knight Frank Singapore, said developers are not as aggressive as before in the