HIGH-RISE RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY PRICE AND CAPITAL MARKET

Abstract

This dissertation aims to examine sensitivity of returns on Singapore high-rise median residential property prices to capital market factors from 2000 to 2010 through an analysis of postal sector data. Besides, this study tests the hypothesis that high-priced residential areas and their respective exposure to equity market are positively related. The findings clearly prove that there is a strong positive sensitivity of changes in high-rise residential home prices to equity total return index. However, it is noted that the excess quarterly total home price return is not influenced by excess quarterly total return on long-term bond index. Also, the result reveals that the higher-priced residential areas are not more sensitive to the stock market as in previous studies. These findings would be helpful to decision making of investment portfolio allocation. Since changes in high-rise housing returns are strongly exposed to equity market factors, the inclusion of this asset into the investment portfolio should be prudently considered to maximize diversification benefits. Furthermore, this study does give us an insight into the sensitivity of different groups of postal sectors to stock and long-term bond market. As such, those residents within these respective postal sectors may take this into account when they want to invest in stock market. Instead of investing heavily in stock market, they are recommended to put their wealth in other investment baskets to utilize the diversification benefits.