DBS's total housing loans fell to S$74.4 billion as at March 31, 2019, down from S$75 billion as at end-2018. It was S$73.5 billion on March 31, 2018.
BT FILE PHOTO
DBS Group Holdings, the nation's largest home loan provider, saw its mortgage book shrink for the first time in years in the first quarter of 2019, chief executive Piyush Gupta said on Monday.
"The negative quarter was the first time in many, many years," Mr Gupta said during the bank's results announcement.
DBS's total housing loans fell to S$74.4 billion as at March 31, 2019, down from S$75 billion as at end-2018. It was S$73.5 billion on March 31, 2018. The Singapore home loans contraction of "half a billion dollars" was due to last year's property cooling measures by the Singapore government, Mr Gupta said.
Booking of new home loans is soft and about half of what was booked from a year ago, he said. DBS is maintaining its home loan market share of 31 per cent.
DBS Group Holdings, the nation's largest home loan provider, saw its mortgage book shrink for the first time in years in the first quarter of 2019, chief executive Piyush Gupta said on Monday.Mr Gupta still expects the 2019 mortgage book to grow as more projects are completed, but he tempered expectations. Instead of an earlier growth estimate of S$1.5 billion to S$2 billion, he is projecting a lower increase of S$1 billion-S$1.5 billion.
Booking of new home loans is soft and about half of what was booked from a year ago, he said. DBS is maintaining its home loan market share of 31 per cent.
DBS Group Holdings, the nation's largest home loan provider, saw its mortgage book shrink for the first time in years in the first quarter of 2019, chief executive Piyush Gupta said on Monday.Mr Gupta still expects the 2019 mortgage book to grow as more projects are completed, but he tempered expectations. Instead of an earlier growth estimate of S$1.5 billion to S$2 billion, he is projecting a lower increase of S$1 billion-S$1.5 billion.
Last year's home loan book grew just under S$2 billion, half the pace of the almost S$4 billion expansion in the previous period, he said.
Last July, the government imposed higher additional buyer's stamp duty rates (ABSD) and stricter loan-to-value (LTV) limits on residential property purchases to cool the market.
First-time buyers are not affected by the higher ABSD, but they are hit by tighter LTV limits for home loans. The revised LTV fell to 75 per cent, from 80 per cent previously, so a buyer has to stump up 25 per cent cash, up from 20 per cent.
Higher ABSD - an extra 5 percentage points - applies for second and subsequent homes for citizens and permanent residents while foreigners face 20 per cent ABSD, up from 15 per cent. Home sales dropped 10.6 per cent to 21,657 units in 2018.
The private residential price index declined 0.7 per cent in the first quarter this year, led mostly by the high end segment.
This is the second consecutive quarterly decline according to the Urban Redevelopment Authority last week after the fourth quarter's 0.1 per cent decrease.