Landed or condo

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Land yourself a good investment

 

In recent years, landed properties have seen higher capital appreciation and proved to be more resilient during a downturn.

 

Sun, Apr 01, 2012

The Business Times

 

SHORTER economic cycles coupled with increasingly volatile equity markets have led to a growing desire for safer investment options.

 

In property investments, homebuyers seek to purchase assets that can weather an economic downturn and provide long-term capital appreciation potential. Landed properties, being limited in supply, have often been regarded as a safer property investment option compared to their non-landed counterparts.

 

This has been so in the past few years where a significant number of non-landed units were released to the market through the Government Land Sales (GLS) Programme.

 

In H1 2012, some 7,020 non-landed residential units are expected to be released via the confirmed list while another 7,120 will be supplied through the reserve list.

 

There are no landed sites.

 

While non-landed properties across Singapore have seen higher sales volume in recent years, landed properties have seen higher capital appreciation and proved to be more resilient during a downturn.

 

Should one consider landed homes as an investment option, particularly as the economy becomes more volatile and uncertain?

 

Different classes of landed properties

 

In general, there are four main classes of landed properties in Singapore: Good Class Bungalows (GCBs), conventional landed houses, strata landed houses, and Sentosa Cove landed houses. While there are no restrictions on Singaporeans buying landed properties, permanent residents (PRs) and foreigners face restrictions.

 

GCBs may be regarded as the cr