According to recent media reports, the stricter cooling measures brought in by the government along with falling prices in the market have seen many borrowers struggling to sell off their luxury units in Symphony Suites. It’s nearly a fivefold increase in the number of houses that the bank is putting on auction.

Symphony Suites Prices and Restrictions

Colliers International has pointed out that the timeframe for sales of Symphony Suites to be between January and October of 2014 has seen 98 homes that were repossessed being put up on the auction block, quite a change from the 17 homes being auctioned during the whole of 2013.
Included in these properties in Yishun Symphony Suites have been non landed properties that have been at prominent residential projects, such as Stevens Court located at Stevens Road, Sentosa Cove’s Turquoise and Keppel Bay’s Reflections.

More looking at the finance restrictions of Symphony Suites

While the financing and regulatory environment has become more austere, we are seeing borrowers who are in default struggling to sell off their properties on their own for Symphony Suites. This is because buyers are continuing to remain cautious, according to Grace Ng, Deputy Managing Director of Colliers International.
In addition, there has been a considerable increase in non-performing loans of local banks for mortgage loans of Symphony Suites, as a result of high end property owners going into default.
According to lender UOB (United Overseas Bank), there was nearly a double in their housing non-performing loans to $502 million during the financial 3rd quarter, as compared to $295 million a year ago. They pointed out that this significant gain for Symphony Suites has been mainly the result of borrowers who chose to invest in one specific Singaporean luxury project, however UOB refrained from giving the name of this project.

Portfolio of Yishun Symphony Suites EL Development

While this is happening, non-performing loans for OCBC (Overseas Chinese Banking Corporations) saw a $272 million rise, up from $227 million. It has been shown that one of the main factors behind OCBC’s increase has been the portfolio consolidation of OCBC Wing Hang.
Donald Han, the Managing Director of Chestertons Singapore, has said that if someone has maxed out the amount on their loan and there has been a drop in values for Symphony Suites, they will more than likely find it difficult to get refinancing, even more so if they have an unattractive credit rating. In some cases, a person may be asked by banks to top up their value by adding in more money. It may go into the non-performing loans when a person is not able to do this.