9/11/2008

How to tell your own tooth

How to tell your own tooth with the backing of statistics? Piece of cake. I saw this chart on sales of private homes in My Paper today. The heading of the article is 'More HDB owners upgrading'. Reading from the chart, it quoted a 'DTZ's analysis of caveats captured by URA's Realis system,' and said, 'The number of private homes bought by those with HDB addresses also increased 35% quarter on quarter to 1,199, outpacing 3% increase over the same period in the number of private homes picked up by those with private properties.' Now comes the interesting part. Comparing the 1Q08 to 2Q08, the numbers were 888 and 1,199. So we see a 35% increase. But if you compare 2Q07 and 2Q08, also quarter on quarter, the numbers were 2,982 and 1,199. This is a fall of more than 50%. If one just read the heading, it gives the impression that more HDB owners are upgrading. Which is true if one is comparing 2Q08 with 1Q08. A rosy picture. But when comparing 2Q08 against 2Q07, it is like a recession is coming. And looking at the bigger picture, total purchases of private homes in 2Q07 is 13,513, 3Q07 is 9,441, 4Q07 is 5,,069. Then look at 1Q08 at 3148 and 2Q08 at 3,518, we are seeing a shrinking private housing market, from a peak of 13,513 to 3,518. Depending on how one uses statistics, it can tell all kinds of stories.

4 comments:

  1. If they say 'huat ah' then 'huat loh'

    For me, I would never read too much into statistics, same as putting too much trust in experts in this and that. Who do you think they earn their keeps? He who pays the piper calls the tunes. The experts will sing the song the one who paid him want them to sing.

    Many things endorsed by experts have been found to be less or even worse than thought eg. margarine was once praised as a better alternative to butter, polyunsaturated fat was recommended in place of animal fat and used in most food, but they never revealed the undesirable side of the story and lately the story of 'botox' once thought very safe by experts.

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  2. Dear redbean,
    A very sharp analysis from you. Well done.
    I've a similar thought in this post:
    HDB Upgraders Back in the Private Property Market?
    Best wishes.

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  3. hi singapore property investor, (spi), welcome to the blog.

    it is ingenious how words and statistics can be made to tell the tooth. and factually correct too.

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  4. By Daryl Loo

    SINGAPORE, Sept 15 - Private home sales in Singapore slumped 81 percent in August from a year ago, to the lowest level since March as a combination of global financial turmoil and a traditionally unlucky month spooked buyers.

    Sales of new residential projects, comprising both houses and apartments, fell to 320 units from 1,723 units sold in August last year, and sales were also down 64 percent from the 901 units taken up in July 2008, government data showed on Monday....

    The above was copied from Yahoo, by Reuters.

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