Singapore’s luxury real estate market has been experiencing some serious highs and lows over the past few years. In March of 2015 Japanese property developer Katsumi Tada suffered a record-setting loss of over US $11 million when he sold his St Regis penthouse for just under US $9 million. The following month Chinese billionaire Sun Tongyu, co-founder of Alibaba, spent more than US $37 million on acquiring the only penthouse unit at the luxury development Le Nouvel Ardmore. That equates to a cost of approximately US $4,000 per square foot in terms of useable area.

Market Cooling Measures

Since 2010, the Singapore government has been introducing cooling measures to bring sharp price increases under control. Most significant have been the Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty (ABSD) and Total Debt Servicing Ratio (TDSR), both instituted in 2013.