Standard Chartered: Mass market prices could fall by 30% over next 3 years!

Private home prices in the mass market could fall by up to 30% over the next three years as supply ramps up amid falling demand, according to a new report.

Standard Chartered analysts see demand being hit by the stuttering economy and slower population growth in the wake of tighter immigration rules.

Population growth will shrink to between 1.5 and 2% for the next three to five years, they noted, while economic expansion is set to slow 3 to 4%, from an average of 6.1% over the past five years.

But housing supply will go the opposite way with the number of mass market units expected to rise by 3.1% next year and 5.4% in 2013.

"We expect lower population growth and high completions to induce a 20 to 30% decline in home prices from 2012 to 2014," the report said.

Source: The Straits Times

Is it just us or have market sentiments gone from cautiously optimistic to increasingly pessimistic in recent days? Reports from two separate sources within a span of one week certainly seems to suggest so....

http://sgproptalk.blogspot.com/2011/11/pure-pessimism.html

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