Residential

A breather for homeowners who bought before last June 29

With immediate effect from Feb 10 this year, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has announced that refinancing of loans for homes bought before June 29, 2013 will be exempted from the total debt servicing ratio (TDSR) cap of 60 percent. The cap means that a borrower’s monthly installments for all debt servicing including mortgage payments cannot exceed 60 percent of gross monthly income. This is a breather from the strict debt rules governing mortgages for homeowners who are considering refinancing of their mortgages. Before this, owner-occupiers with an intention to refinance their loans could only be exempted from this rule if they owned no other property and had no other home loan. Banks are also likely to welcome this policy tweak because it may revive the refinancing market, after the sharp decrease in new home loan sales since ...