Ever thought of living in a gated community home? Strata homes offers you with the opportunity to live in a communal home with amenities such as shopping centers, playground , security surveillance all day and night as well as other facilities such as a swimming pools. Strata homes are built independently but all the houses are enclosed in one major perimeter wall.

In the past few years, investment in Strata homes was a challenge to most potential buyers as policies from financial providers were offering zero debt servicing for them. There were loops in sales and resale's of the properties due to the financial status of the target market being a target of not being serviced by banks. This further impacted heavily on the price of tag of the homes between 2013 and 2015 where prices dropped by more than 10%.

All is not lost, as the industry is stepping on its feet again. The comeback of new condominium projects is a sign that there are viable prospects in the property. This is in line with informing the potential home owners to invest in this sector that has its niche not exploited to the maximum.

Certainly, landed homes give any potential home owner the value of their money when taking into consideration the aspect of price performance. From a recent research, landed homes did outdo the non-landed homes as far as price performance is considered. The price index of the property has registered an annual growth of over 4.8%.

Practically, resale of landed homes earns more than the non-landed homes. From 2005, the price for reselling a Strata home per square feet was $356 and had doubled to $716 per square feet in the year 2015. Figuratively, this is an indicator of an annual gain of over $7.2. Over the same period, the non-landed homes price per square feet had risen to $628.

Buyers should however , be cautious of the fact that the probability of gain in value of a Strata home will depend on the time of buying as well as the price that was paid. The above evaluation is for helping any buyer who is torn between investing in either landed or non-landed homes.

It is also important to note that all property listing do not necessarily reflect competitiveness in pricing of homes. This will help prevent the buyers from overpaying for home units as resale of the properties is subject to a factor of time.

More apartment projects have included landed homes in their units since the year 2011. The market has on the other been reflecting negative results as the homes have not yet been resold with the current resale market, there not easy to evaluate performance of their prices. This has led the evaluators to using anecdotal substantiation to evaluate the price performance.

The price gain over a period of time for Strata homes is higher compared to the non-landed condo units. As earlier indicated, it is a subject of timing and pricing while buying and selling. Giving examples, in Ridgewood, a unit bought in 2005 at $469 per square feet fetched $1,209 in 2015, indicating a 158% price gain. In another freehold establishment in Sandalwood, their reflection of price gain was 79% over the same period. This indicates that the landed homes offered more value for money.

The market view these landed homes as properties that are worth having for keep. Paying a price that is competitive for properties is call to the potential home buyers to conduct an in-depth research and due diligence of the property. Comparing with other locations will be crucial in making of such decisions. There are limited landed homes in the market and therefore wise to check on the best. From about 258,098 private homes and condo units, there were about 72,205 landed homes.

With regards to Singapore's fundamentals' of the economy, this scarcity is meant to safeguard the capital appreciation of the landed homes in the long term. To put this into perspective, there are around 1582 landed property that will be completed in five years' time. That is a representation of about 3% of the upcoming 57597 private homes. 56,015 non landed homes are also under construction.

Singapore is a top property investment market since 1990s. Singapore property investors have at least made three times the amount of capital outlay. Foreigners are curious as to their eligibility to purchase a property in built in Singapore. The answer is yes but it comes with more restriction compared to a citizen in Singapore. Two main investment categories available are residential property as well as commercial property. Within the residential segment and commercial segment itself there are sub categories and foreigners will only be able to invest in certain sub categories.

Residential property types in Singapore include HDB flats, Executive Condos, Private Apartment, Private Condo and Landed houses. Only Singaporean and PR holders can officially buy HDB houses which are subsidized housing schemes by the government. Foreigners have no ownership rights to HDB. Executive Condos are subsidized condo for Singaporean and PR. For PR holders, they can buy one after 5 years have passed from the completion of building, or commonly known as the Minimum Occupation Period (MOP). Foreigners are allowed to purchase one after 10 years. Private condos and apartments can be bought by foreigners, and there is no restriction on the number of units one can buy, just the average cost is around $2 million SGD so only for wealthy. For landed houses, foreigner keen on the houses must have government consent where owners have to prove that they contribute meaningfully to Singapore's economic development. There is a dedicated online portal for application.

For commercial properties, some of the sub categories include shop houses, office blocks and units, hotels, warehouses, factories, shopping malls and many others. Commercial property can also be freely bought and sold by foreigners. Leasehold property and freehold property are 2 only property tenures in Singapore. HDB as well as executive condos has a 99 year leasehold term. Private condos and apartment has 99, 999 years term or freehold. Leasehold property means Singapore government owns the land and property owners are leasing it back from the government for a small annual fee. The land is to be returned to government at the terminal lease period. Foreigners can own both freehold and leasehold properties.

Property taxes are additional cost added to the purchase price of Singapore property. These taxes include buyer's stamp duty, seller's stamp duty, annual property tax, income tax on rental and GST (goods and services tax). Buyer's stamp duty rates are 3% less SGD5400 for property price above SGD360,000 and additional buyer's stamp duty rates are 15%. Free trade agreements signed by Singapore and countries such as Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein, USA and Switzerland will see the buyer exempted from additional buyer's stamp duty if the foreigner is a valid citizen or PR from the foreign countries mentioned.

There will be a seller's stamp duty tax imposed if sale of property is made within 4 full years from date of acquisition. The rate starts from 16% for sale occurring on the 5th year, with gradual decrease every following year. Annual property tax for residential property is dependent on the use of property. If a property is for private stay, tax rates ranges from 0 to 12% of annual property value. If a property is rented to outsiders, tax rates ranges from 10 to 12% of annual property value. Property tax rates for commercial properties are 10% of annual property value. Property annual value is derived from the gross annual rental rate for properties being rented out, excluding furnishings and furniture maintenance fees. Estimated market rental rates for comparable properties are used as comparison estimation. Rental income used to derive the Income tax rates on rental is net rental inflow after deducting directly attributable expenses ie interest on home loan, commission for real estate agent, maintenance fees, property tax and others. Foreigners are required to pay 20% net rental inflow tax rate, but will increase up to 22% beginning from YA 2017. GST in Singapore stands at 7% and payable to any commercial property buyers who are individuals.

Locals and foreigners alike have made huge capital gains and realized profits by property investment in Singapore but there are many who also lamented missed opportunities over the years. Singapore economy is expected to grow with gradual rising property market as better infrastructure are built such as new MRT lines and expressways. One must be brave to take the necessary action in view of the stable political scene in Singapore with very low unemployment rate.

Buying property can be summarized in few key steps. Firstly, perform a quick loan assessment on you own financial standing. Check out the mortgage markets and packages with a mortgage specialist. Proceed to discuss on desired property types and location with the property agents. Shortlist desired units and make arrangements for viewing. If you are satisfied with the price and conditions, proceed to pay a booking fee and arrange for loan and you will soon be accepting the keys to your first property purchase.

Cannot be denied, lately, Asia has risen a number of a middle class, due to the economic growth. According to the fact that Singapore Economy sector has to face the decline for a bit, there also a good sign that statistic has shown an increase in consumer spending in Southeast Asia, and in air traffic at Changi Airport as a regional hub. A raised in a middle-class people of the Asia region absolutely will increase their domestic consumption. This consumption also includes a high-tech product and increasing the number of the manufacturing sector. This also has an impact on their import number to increase, and the last, adding their investment in the foreign country. Despite the political uncertainty which occurs in some countries of South East Asia (associated in Association of South East Asian Nation), EDB was certain that Singapore can take an advantage of the growth of the population of countries like the Philippines and Indonesia. ASEAN country has a 5 percent growth in the economic sector. It will give Singapore a chance to get profit, as long as they open up the economy and have some policies that friendly with the market. EDB also certain it will last for about a long term.

Economic Development Board of Singapore, as the lead government agencies built in 1961, is an institute that developing strategies to keep Singapore become a global business center.

EDB has the aim to attract the foreign investor to boost the Singapore manufacturing industry sector. EDB is the future preparation for the Singapore nation. They have established a strong position in the global economy, and not less important is they have to create a competitive environment in order to save the city's standing inside and outside of the region. EDB's aim becoming tough since the statistic has shown that Singapore export-oriented has been flat for the first quarter. But the EDB aim has been strengthening by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) by issuing a policy to not taking appreciate from currency. EDB thought this policy aim is to stabilize the cost structure in Singapore, which will pull out the business competition and encourage them to step up to the market. Further, this policy has kept the cost structure to be in competitive range. Nonetheless, the currency will become a big problem. This policy has put aside the currency problem and lead to a growth number of exports.

The cost structure has become so important because it has an impact transmitted to external demand and import prices. The MAS set to zero appreciation path to make a nominal effective exchange rate policy, to bend the imported and domestic pressure of inflation.

The government has put an effort to tightened the application process for the foreign workers, not by sorted of their nationality, but more oriented to the target which is valuable and investment- potential. Beh Swan Gin from the EDB said that if a company is servicing a Singapore's customers, then it will not make a sense to have all of their staff come from a foreign country.

A vital part of Singapore's economy is the electronic industry. This industry accounts for twenty five percent of Singapore's total manufacturing output. The industry has approximately eighty thousand workers and many of these works stand out. A couple of these hard working people where profiled and this article speaks a little about them.

Kevin Koh is a thirty four year old that leads the central processing unit team at Media Tek Singapore. This team works with many other team from around the world to make better the CPUs that are installed in everything from phones to internet boxes. With the demand for higher performance Mr Koh's believes to combat this with multiple CPU installed on the silicon chips of electronic devices that will increase the capability of the device. The energy efficiency of the CPUs is also something that Mr. Koh's team of technicians have worked on. Anyone can relate to their phone's battery going dead in crucial moments due to power leakage. The prevention of this s also a task that the team has been charged with.

At the time of Mr. Koh's employment to Media Tek as a physical design engineer the demand for digital performance was not as high as it is today. Even Mr Koh himself used a simple phone that allowed him to make calls and messages. He has upgraded somewhat to a device that runs on a quad core that enables him to take pictures, send email and a host of other task right from his cell phone. He commented that personally using the devices that his team had worked on the CPUs is the best and perfect way to test the quality of the device while making note on the required upgrades that will make the device more dynamic.

It is the belief of Mr. Koh that customized machines are always better and less expensive than conventional ones. He finished University with a degree in electronic and electrical engineering in 2005 and spent his first year of employment at Fujitsu Microelectronics Asia Limited. He then left to join the team at Media Tek and was shortly promoted staff engineer and then to manager of the CPU high performance team. He has currently completed a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering.

The Singapore Silicon Laboratories has a forty eight year old design director that goes by the name Leung Kafai. Ms. Leung Kafai has always been fascinated with how things work and spent most of her time playing in her father's tool box as a child. At that time she was only skilled at pulling apart devices but as she grew so did her skills. She attended Texas A&M University and attained a Bachelor of Science in nineteen eighty five after which she worked as a system designer in Texas. She shortly attained an Electrical Engineering master's degree in Austin at the University of Texas.

She became a part of a startup organization in the year two thousand called Cygnal Integrated Products. This company was soon later swallowed up by Silicon Labs. Her new job title at this point was senior engineer and as her new company established a team in Singapore she got the chance to be the team leader of the microelectronics design. Her team is the one responsible for the artificial intelligence of electronic devices such as their energy efficiency. She leads a team of twenty that is responsible for the design of chips. She is a strong believer in having a social life and she tries to keep hers and her teammates weekends free to spend with friends and family. She also plans get together for her teams and their families.

The next hard worker to speak about many love and without even knowing they do. She is the designer of the chip in television sets that allow you to channel surf. She gets very proud whenever she sees a television set on knowing that it was possible thanks to something she created. She commented that the rapid advancements in microelectronics is what keeps her so interested and intrigued to the field. She worked in Britain for a couple of years where she eventually finished a Master's in Electronic Circuit Design and Manufacture. This was from the University of Dundee. She worked for a couple companies back in Singapore before becoming a part of the Broadcom team in the year two thousand and five.