Reported by Bloomberg

Singapore’s luxury housing deals are drying up as one of the nation’s largest-ever money-laundering scandals weighs on the market.

High-end bungalow sales are set for their worst year in nearly a decade with just eight sold as of the end of September, according to data compiled by Knight Frank. Realstar Premier Group Pte – an agency specialising in landed homes – says that for September, it sold fewer than half of the 10 properties it usually brokers a month.

The transaction drought follows money-laundering investigations into a group of people of Chinese origin, significant tax increases on foreign buyers and rising interest rates. Rental demand for mansions that once hit S$150,000 (US$110,000) a month has also cooled as the wealthy think twice about flashy homes in the city state.

“The recent anti-money-laundering blitz by the Singapore police force has tainted the luxury property market,” said Lewis Cha, executive director for List Sotheby’s International Realty. “It will take a while for the dust to settle and the market to forget this negative image of luxury real estate.”

Knight Frank figures don’t include undisclosed deals, but the eight mansions sold compare with 20 last year. That’s a fraction of the 60 units transacted in 2021, representing an 80 per cent drop from that year’s S$2.1 billion (US$1.53 billion) in sales.

Read full report: https://amp.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3239768/singapores-luxury-property-market-grinds-halt-amid-massive-money-laundering-probe