Housing markets
The housing market is a fascinating one - it is consistently filled with booms and bubbles. Be it Japan, UK, USA, Singapore, Thailand, etc. , there's numerous examples in which the housing market experienced an amazing boom before suffering an equally amazing collapse.
Just looking at recent house prices in Singapore, I'm starting to wonder whether we are in the midst of a bubble. Prices are amazingly ridiculously high (especially given today's economic climate). This is pretty interesting since house prices in US and UK have definitely gone down significantly over the past 6 months, and yet the Singaporean housing market looks no sign of abating. In fact, HDB announced that it will be building more flats in the upcoming year, and I definitely do see more condo projects coming up all over Singapore as well.
And so, are we in a bubble now? I'm thinking of trying to model the determinants of housing bubbles, and see whether there might be any common trends to those that we have observed in the past. And also, possibly attempt to predict whether we might be in a bubble (a probit model?). I'm not sure whether this will work (I have been kind of lazy and have no searched around for any literature on the topic), but it might be viable and feasible.
Hmmm, on a sidenote, I think Singaporeans are definitely not feeling the pinch of a slowdown in the economy. The travel fair this year looks significantly bigger than the past, and the attractions seem to be way more exotic as well. Many Singaporeans are definitely going to the cinemas - I went to watch a 1045 show today, reached GV Tampines at 1030 and started queuing, got my tickets at around 1100 (that's how long the queue was), and when I collected my tickets the queue was as long as before, and equally long when I left the cinema. Gosh, I can imagine how packed the cinemas will be in Orchard.
Just looking at recent house prices in Singapore, I'm starting to wonder whether we are in the midst of a bubble. Prices are amazingly ridiculously high (especially given today's economic climate). This is pretty interesting since house prices in US and UK have definitely gone down significantly over the past 6 months, and yet the Singaporean housing market looks no sign of abating. In fact, HDB announced that it will be building more flats in the upcoming year, and I definitely do see more condo projects coming up all over Singapore as well.
And so, are we in a bubble now? I'm thinking of trying to model the determinants of housing bubbles, and see whether there might be any common trends to those that we have observed in the past. And also, possibly attempt to predict whether we might be in a bubble (a probit model?). I'm not sure whether this will work (I have been kind of lazy and have no searched around for any literature on the topic), but it might be viable and feasible.
Hmmm, on a sidenote, I think Singaporeans are definitely not feeling the pinch of a slowdown in the economy. The travel fair this year looks significantly bigger than the past, and the attractions seem to be way more exotic as well. Many Singaporeans are definitely going to the cinemas - I went to watch a 1045 show today, reached GV Tampines at 1030 and started queuing, got my tickets at around 1100 (that's how long the queue was), and when I collected my tickets the queue was as long as before, and equally long when I left the cinema. Gosh, I can imagine how packed the cinemas will be in Orchard.
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