United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) is Singapore's national land use planning authority. URA prepares long-term strategic plans and detailed local area plans for physical development, and then co-ordinates and guides efforts to bring these plans to reality.

One of URA’s key roles is to facilitate the implementation of these plans through the sale of state land to the private sector. Under this Government Land Sales (GLS) programme, URA releases state land for residential, commercial, hotel and industrial developments and ensures adequate land is available to support economic growth, provide housing, social leisure facilities and commercial amenities for a better quality of life.

To promote greater market transparency and efficiency and provide a level playing field for all market participants and stakeholders, URA compiles and disseminates real estate information through its publications and website. This information includes property price and rental indices, stock and occupancy, and supply and demand statistics on a country-wide basis. Most of this information is freely available on URA’s website (http://www.ura.gov.sg). For those who require more detailed statistics, the URA provides a fee-based real estate portal REALIS (https://spring.ura.gov.sg/lad/ore/login/index.cfm). Home-buyers, businesses, developers and professionals like property consultants and analysts, often make use of URA’s data to help make decisions on land/property purchases and leasing.

With the strong growth of Singapore’s economy in the last few years, demand for space across all property sectors has been growing. This has resulted in rising prices and rentals, in particular for private residential and commercial space. Reports of escalating prices and rentals have been widely reported in the media. Many of these reports focused only on the sharp increase in prices, rentals and low vacancy rates of selected high-end residential properties, Grade A office buildings or selected shopping malls in prime locations, but failed to mention the more moderate increase in prices, rentals and generally higher and healthier vacancy level for most private residential properties and commercial buildings.

As a result, the business community and general public may get the wrong impression that residential, office or shop prices and rentals were escalating throughout Singapore amidst a severe shortage of residential, office and retail space available for purchase or lease. This misperception may cause some aspiring homeowners who fear missing out on the opportunity to own private residential properties in a rapidly rising market to make sub-optimal purchase decisions. Companies looking to lease office space may also make sub-optimal decisions based on high office rentals reported in the media. This may further lead to the sharp property price and rental increases in the market not supported by fundamentals. There is therefore a need to correct this perception gap to bring greater transparency and stability to the property market.

To allow the public to have a more complete picture of conditions in the private residential and commercial property market and to help businesses and the general public make better informed purchase and leasing decisions pertaining to private residential and commercial properties, URA released more detailed price, rental and vacancy rate data for such properties.

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
Segmenting the property market into sub-segments In addition to providing country-wide data, URA sub-divided and presented private home prices into three geographical regions, reflecting real estate trends in the city, fringe and suburban areas. It showed price increases were not as steep and rapid outside of the city and there were still affordable homes across the country. Office properties were differentiated into two categories, defined by the characteristics of the space (e.g. location, age, rentals, floor plate size) to show that businesses could still find affordable office spaces in Singapore. More timely price data To address concerns of media reports focusing on record high transaction prices and rentals in selected segments of the market, the URA embarked on an unprecedented monthly survey of all licensed housing developers. Developers were required to submit price data on every unit sold in a calendar month, which were then published by URA. This gave purchasers an idea of the range of prices that properties were being sold for and a sense of the level of market activity, and that there were still properties sold at more affordable prices. More Detailed Rental Data As a response to feedback that rentals were increasing sharply, URA worked with the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS), which collects property tax, to release quarterly rental data (in $/square foot per month) for every private residential property with more than 10 rental transactions in a quarter. Aggregated data was released based on 25th percentile, median and 75th percentile rentals, to give a picture of the range of rentals in private residential properties country-wide and that more affordable rentals could still be found. Home Buyers’ Guide URA introduced a one-stop online portal providing a step-by-step guide (http://www.ura.gov.sg/lad/HBG/) for home buyers to help them in their decision-making process. This guide takes potential home buyers on a complete walk-through of the entire property purchase process. It is also useful and relevant to local and foreign property investors, property consultants, and property owners selling their properties. Benefits The voluminous and broad range of data was presented in a user-friendly format on URA’s website, so any developer, property consultant, professional and home buyer can easily access and use the information to make better decisions. Property analysts, consultants and the public have commended and welcomed these initiatives. The number of hits to URA’s website to access this new data increased from 350,000 for 2006 to 520,000 from January to November 2007. This is significant given Singapore has a population of only 4.7 million. The data has further enhanced market transparency and provided a more accurate and detailed picture of the market, important in supporting the rapidly growing market, reducing possible panic buying and providing greater market stability. Most importantly, by anticipating market needs and addressing information and perception gaps, the provision of timely and detailed property data contributed to continued confidence in Singapore’s property market.

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
Proposal and implementation of solution A team of research officers from the Property Research department in the URA studied how to better enhance the transparency in the market via the provision of more timely and comprehensive data. To expedite the process and leverage on the team’s expertise, the same team was also tasked to implement the solution. Working Partners The URA Property Research team worked with the following partners to implement the initiative:  Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) which is Singapore’s tax authority provided raw rental data extracted from property tax returns. Rental data was then extracted and processed by URA.  Singapore Land Authority (SLA) which is Singapore’s land registration authority provided raw price data recorded in legal caveats lodged by property purchasers or their solicitors as part of the property transaction process. Price data was then extracted and processed by URA.  Information Systems department in URA was engaged to design and implement user-friendly e-services on URA’s website for easy and quick access to the new data released. The Stakeholders In addition, the team worked with the following stakeholders to seek their views and feedback before implementing the initiative: Developers who develop and sell properties were instrumental for the initiative to work as they had to provide us with the necessary price data on a monthly basis through surveys. Such data has to be accurate and submitted to URA in a timely manner in order for URA to be able to release the new data to the public. URA also consulted and rallied the Real Estate Developers Association of Singapore (REDAS) for support from member developers to participate in this initiative. As a result of this concerted effort, URA has been able to garner 100% support from all licensed developers and release the new monthly price data on time since its commencement in July 07. Property consultants who provide property market analyses and advise their clients on property purchase and leasing are key users of the new data released. The key property consultants had provided URA with invaluable feedback in the planning stage as well as the post-implementation stage, which was useful for URA to provide the most useful data possible to the public. Home-buyers are the most important stakeholders as the new data provided is primarily for their use. This is also the largest and most diverse stakeholder group, including local and foreign real estate investors. Feedback from this group came primarily through customer feedback channels during the planning and post-implementation stages. They gave the team useful feedback on the usefulness of the new data provided and features of each webpage as well as suggestions on how to further improve our service.

Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
a. What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
Segmentation of the property market into various sub-segments Recognising that distinct price and rental trends have emerged over the past few years, we categorised properties in Singapore into different sub-market segments. For residential properties, this was the traditional prime housing areas, the city fringe areas and the suburban areas. For commercial properties, this was the traditional central business area or shopping districts, against the rest of the office or retail space in the country. The office space was also differentiated by a variety of other factors, including the age of the building as well as the floor plate size – factors often considered by property consultants in deciding what constitutes prime office space. The country-wide data released by URA was then broken down into these respective segments. We looked at historical time series comparisons of such data in order to ascertain that they were not too volatile and could be compiled within certain acceptable standard error requirements. Once validated, the data was then released to the public according to these sub-market segments, with an accompanying press release to highlight and explain the changes so that real estate professionals and the public can make effective use of this new data series. More Timely Price Data A comprehensive survey of all developers was conducted on a monthly basis in order to obtain the price data for units sold on the market. The team had to design a new survey questionnaire (to be administered either online or other means) to effectively extract the relevant transaction information from developers and to ensure timely submission of survey returns every month. It was necessary to obtain 100% coverage so as to be able to provide the complete picture to the public. The strategy was to secure some degree of buy-in by first engaging the Real Estate Developers of Singapore (REDAS), an association comprising all the licensed developers in Singapore. Through informal and formal channels, URA was able to explain the rationale for such a move. Such dialogue also enabled URA to calm any fears that the developers might have on issues like confidentiality of information. More Detailed Rental Data IRAS had been providing URA with rental data for the compilation of our rental indices, but we had to convince IRAS to allow us to publish data on actual rental figures. We were cognizant of the privacy issues and therefore worked with IRAS to establish the minimum number of rental transactions whereby an aggregated picture of the rental situation for a particular residential development could be provided. Home Buyers’ Guide During the course of our interaction with purchasers of uncompleted private residential properties, we noticed that some were not familiar with the process of buying properties and their obligations and rights as a home-buyer. In response to this, and given the current buoyant property market, URA, which also regulates the sale and purchase of uncompleted private residential properties, decided to look into providing more information to enable home-buyers to make better-informed decisions.

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
Segmentation of the property market into various sub-segments In end-2006, a proposal to provide market segment data for the residential sector was prepared. This included detailing why this was needed as well as the proposed division of the respective market segments. This was approved by the Ministry of National Development (MND) and was to commence with the release of the real estate statistics for the fourth quarter of 2006, scheduled for end-January 2007. As part of the proposal, historical comparison and volatility studies were conducted. In January, the data for the fourth quarter of 2006 was processed so as to provide this segmentation of the market, for the leading property indicators like prices, rentals, demand and supply. The data was released successfully in end-January 2007. The same was done for the commercial market in June 2007, with a similar proposal put up and approved in the second quarter of 2007, culminating in the release of the real estate statistics for the second quarter of 2007 in end-July 2007. Detailed press releases were prepared and issued for each of these new data releases. The media reporters were also briefed just before the press release in end-July 2007 to help them understand and analyse the new set of data effectively. More Timely Price Data Similarly, a proposal to provide monthly price data was submitted for approval in June 2007. Once endorsed by MND, the decision was to conduct the survey for June 2007 data, slated for release on 15th July 2007. A formal letter was sent to REDAS to explain the rationale for this and to seek their understanding in encouraging all their member developers to co-operate with URA in the survey. The data was collected in the first two weeks of July and processed for release as scheduled, on 15th July 2007. This has since become a monthly exercise and URA has been releasing the data in a timely fashion. More Detailed Rental Data The proposal to provide more detailed rental data was endorsed to be released alongside the statistics for the second quarter 2007, scheduled for end-July 2007. URA also had to seek the endorsement of IRAS, the government agency responsible for property tax collection, before the data could be released. Home Buyers’ Guide The proposal to launch a website to provide comprehensive information on the sale and purchase of uncompleted private residential properties was endorsed by URA’s Management in mid-2006. Information to be posted on the website was then drafted in consultation with URA’s legal officers to ensure its accuracy. A trial run was then conducted with industry players, e.g. developers and lawyers, as well as individuals to gather feedback on the usability of the website and the comprehensiveness of the information provided. After modifying the website to take into consideration the feedback received, the website was launched in end-July 2007. All the above initiatives were delivered to the customers through e-services on URA’s website. Extensive User Acceptance Testing for these e-services was conducted prior to their first releases.

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
Segmentation of the property market into various sub-segments One of the main obstacles encountered was how to segment the housing market such that the overall indices would not exhibit a high degree of volatility and would capture a large enough transaction base so these indices could still be calculated in a property market downturn, when transactions are lower. This was overcome by looking at historical data, extending back to when the property market saw a much lower number of transactions. We also studied the standard error computations for these sub-market segments, to make sure that they were of an acceptably low level so as to reduce the volatility. In segmenting the commercial property sector into sub-segments, the key challenge was to identify the distinct characteristics that represented the different segments of the office and retail property sectors. This involved in-depth studies and consultations with industry professionals (e.g. property consultants) on the characteristics of office and retail space in different locations and the rentals they fetched. More Timely Price Data One of the major challenges here was to obtain the co-operation of all the developers in providing their price data returns in such a short time, all on a voluntary basis. This was critical so as to present a complete picture of the entire property market. To address this, we assured the developers that the data would be aggregated, assuaging their concerns of customer privacy and confidentiality; and reiterated the objective of obtaining such data, which was to improve market transparency and provide more timely price information to the public. A briefing was also conducted for all developers keen to find out more about the rationale and the means to provide this data to URA. More Detailed Rental Data One key challenge in compiling more detailed rental data for commercial space was to ensure that the data was relevant to the market and based on a methodology not out of line with market practice. Hence, there was a need to study how major property consultants in Singapore as well as overseas Government agencies computed rental data. The study found that the rental data for commercial space released by URA and overseas Government agencies reflect the occupancy cost of space where leases had commenced, while the rental data released by property consultants reflect rental rates being contracted for space where leases would commence in the future. As rental data computed based on both methodologies were different, but both useful and relevant to the market, URA decided to release both sets of data based on the different methodologies. To do this, URA worked with IRAS to obtain rental transaction records extracted based on both methodologies. Home Buyers’ Guide The main challenge was to present the information in a manner that was easily understood by the public. To overcome this, a trial run was conducted with individuals to assess if the information can be easily understood and if there were problems in navigating the Guide. The Guide was then modified based on feedback received.

d. What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
Financial resources for the entire initiative were minimal, in that it was largely internal to URA by way of human resources (wages). Data were provided to us either on a goodwill basis or had already been continually been provided to us by other agencies, with no additional costing required since the segmentation or the additional processing of the data was all carried out by URA. The technical resources utilised in implementing this initiative was mainly IT manpower resources from URA’s internal Information Systems Department. About 43 mandays of effort was involved in designing, testing and implementing the e-services on URA’s website to effectively and conveniently deliver the new data to the end-users. Additional human resources were needed to implement the initiative. These included 2 additional clerical staff principally for the release of new monthly price data. On a monthly basis, the clerical staff had to call up the various developers to make sure that they had received the survey questionnaire or to remind them to submit their returns when the deadline neared. An additional research officer was also required to put together and analyse the monthly price data and to make sure that the data was accurate, by counter-checking any outlier records before public release.

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
The focus of this initiative is predominantly on increasing the level of transparency in the property market, by making more comprehensive and accurate property information available on a timely basis to enable the public to make more informed decisions related to property transactions. In implementing the initiatives, we have also ensured that the related processes and quality procedures compliant with ISO9001 standard have been put in place to facilitate the continual sustainability of this initiative. As part of our ISO9001 re-certification and maintenance process, we also subject ourselves to annual audit and re-certification by external auditors with the most recent one carried out successfully in Nov 2007. Therefore, we are confident that this initiative is sustainable in the long term. As URA is the national land use planning authority, the initiative is adopted at a national level. The principle and process of enhancing property market transparency through greater information provision can be replicated and transferred to other countries.

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
A key factor which contributed to the success of this initiative is that a government should try and get buy-in from stakeholders when implementing a public policy. For example, much time and effort was taken to dialogue with developers in the private sector to persuade them to provide their property transaction data for new private residential projects to URA for publication. Our efforts paid-off, and as a result the initiative was very successful, as we managed to obtain 100% cooperation from all the relevant developers on a voluntary basis. At the same time, URA also worked closely with property consultants and analysts to gather feedback on the information that we were publishing. This enabled us to develop a product that is relevant to the professional industry. For the general public, a mechanism was provided through our online website, to enable us to solicit feedback and refine our product to better meet the general public’s needs. Another key factor which contributed to the success of this initiative is the recognition that the government has an important role to play in facilitating a free market economy. In this case, this was through the provision of more property information to the public so that investors, home-purchasers, and other stakeholders can be more discerning of property trends and make informed decisions thereby minimising market distortions. The latter may arise when information is provided solely by the private sector, such as developers or other vested stakeholders, who may ‘talk up’ property market, which in turn could fuel speculative activities or contribute to the formation of an unhealthy property bubble. The real estate data that URA released every quarter is one of the most comprehensive sets of data released by any government agency in the world. As part of our continual improvement efforts, URA is looking at releasing even more timely data in 2008 to supplement our efforts in 2007. In essence, the public service can effectively work with the private sector in coming up with ways to improve the level of transparency and useful information made available to the public.


Institution Name:		Urban Redevelopment Authority
Institution Type:		Government Agency
Contact Person:		Teck Hee Loh
Title:		Head, Property Research
Telephone/ Fax:		+65 63218286
Institution's / Project's Website:		+65 63216596
E-mail:		loh_teck_hee@ura.gov.sg
Address:		45 Maxwell Road, The URA Centre
Postal Code:		069118
City:		Singapore
State/Province:		Singapore
Country:		Singapore

The Problem

Solution and Key Benefits

Actors and Stakeholders

(a) Strategies

(b) Implementation

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

(d) Use of Resources

Sustainability and Transferability

Lessons Learned

Contact Information