Any resident of Singapore, if asked to name one location that stands as the stalwart of advanced manufacturing in the country, the Jurong Innovation District will be the obvious answer. On October 22nd, Deputy PM, Mr Heng Swee Keat claimed that it is time now, it is almost time for the district to welcome 6 new members within the next three years whose calibre range from being recognized as research institutions and industry giants.
Month: October 2019
Singapore’s take on the new technology implemented in transport
The first thing that Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan said regarding the new technologies being brought about in the field of transport is that Singapore will slowly adapt them and avoid rushing into the changes. According to him, the country’s objective is to browse through and get acquainted with an array of technological recourses before settling for a few efficient solutions that are based on well-thought calculations.
Decline in HBD Resale Flat Sales as prices fall
From past few months, the sale of Housing Board Resale flats as on its peak; but it faced considerable decline in the previous month. Probably, it happened due to continues fall in the prices.
Stats revealed by real estate portal SRX property says that almost 1875 flats were sold, but it is 4.9% lesser sale value as compared to the August.
If the value is compared to the sales closed in the same month previous year, it shows a considerable decay of 6.3%.
The four-room flats sold by the last month were able to make up 39.6% whereas the five-room flats lead to 24.9% value. Other than this, the exclusive flats were able to make up 7.6%- and three-room flats limited to 25.7% only.
When compared to the stats presented in the month of August, the resale flat prices came down by almost 0.2%. However, they reported a rise of 0.1% as compared to the previous year.
The overall resale flat prices for the third quarter declined by 0.1% this year, and the trend was downward right from the starting phase of the year.
If we compare the sales figure with the peak market performance of April 2013, the overall price decay is 14.1%. For the mature estates, the price came down by 1.2%; whereas, for non-mature estates, it rose by almost 0.9%.
A four-room unit at the famous The Pinnacle@Duxton point was sold on the highest price of $1 million in the previous month. Also, a 34 years old, well designed executive maisonette at Bishan was also sold with the same price tag.
The forecasts made by SRX reveals that almost 2107 flats will join the HBD resale market in the coming three months. They recently completed the occupation period of a minimum of five years.
The calculative observations reveal that people are not willing to spend more than the estimated market value for any of these listed flats. SRX data also reveals that the overall median transaction or the TOX value was negative $2000 by the previous month.
Note that, median TOX value is a measure of whether people are underpaying or overpaying; the first case is shown by negative TOX value and the later with positive values.
The HBD exclusive flats reported a value of $6000 in the previous month, and it is observed to be negative median TOX. On the other side, the negative median TOX values for four-room and three-room flats was observed to be $1000 and $2500. Similarly, the five-room flats reported the positive median TOX value of $1000.
Christine Sun, the head of research and consultancy at Orange Tee & Tie, said that the fall in the sales volume from the month of August to September id basically a seasonal decline. She also added that more than 15000 resale flats were sold during the first eight months of 2019 and it is believed that the overall resale transactions of this year will reach the estimated count of 22000 to 24000.
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/housing/fewer-hdb-resale-flats-sold-last-month-as-prices-continue-to-slide
Latest new launch in Singapore
Most Competitive Economy In The World – Singapore
Most Competitive Economy In The World – Singapore
If we look at the recently updated global league table, Singapore has become one of the most competitive economies in the entire world. While competing with 141 different countries, it scored 84.8 points out of 100 and stood ahead of the United States as well. Note that, as per previous year’s stats, the US scored 83.7 to top the list.
3D Printing making its way into Singapore’s HDB estate
The upcoming HDB estates at Bidadari and Tengah will be having some of its landscape furniture and architectural features being printed by a 3D printer. This is the first time that the government is utilizing 3D printing for building the smaller features within a HDB estate.
Currently, the HDB Centre of Building Research is where the authority kept the 3D printer and has its concrete printing done. The printer is able to produce components that is up to 3.8m high and measures 9m by 3.5m. This printer is by far, the biggest 3D concrete printer in the entire South-East Asia. The total price of the printer and its installation expenses cost up to $900k.
At the moment, HDB is only printing the architectural features or landscape fittings such as the benches and pavilions in the communal areas. However, the authority is hoping that 3D concrete printing technology, could in the long run, be able to print high-rise HDB buildings. Studies and testings are still ongoing to see if the 3D printed buildings will be able to sustain in our climate.
There are several advantages of using 3D printing for housing and these include time and cost saving. With 3D printing, shorter time and lesser labour-intensive construction are required. Thus, lesser cost are involved as well. For instance, the 3D printer took approximately 13hours to print out a room with dimensions, 3.6m by 2.75m by 2.75 m. After printing out the structure, steel reinforcement bars, windows and door are manually fitted into it and the whole process took approximately 6 days to be completed. However, if a similar structure were to be constructed manually through precast production, this could take more than two months to be done.
3D concrete printing also allows the designers and architects to have more flexibility in their designs which they might not be able to achieve via the conventional method. The conventional method is subject to more restrictions as they rely a lot on manual labour.
3D printing for buildings is rather common in countries such as Denmark and China, however it is still uncommon for 3D concrete printing to be done on buildings that are multi-storeys. This technology is rather new and is still in the researching phase.
You can find out more about 3D printing from the link below
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/housing/3d-printed-features-to-debut-in-tengah-bidadari-estates