The Singapore government has announced new cooling measures, in a response to rising interest rates and record-high home prices. Some of these, such as a higher floor rate for measuring debt servicing ratios, were long expected; but others, like an increased wait-out period for resale flats, came as a surprise. Here’s what you need to know:

Summary of cooling measures:

• Higher floor rate for MSR, TDSR, and HDB loan
• Lower LTV limits for HDB loans
• 15-month wait-out period for some down graders

1. Higher floor rate for MSR, TDSR, and HDB loan  First, for property loans granted by private financial institutions, MAS will raise by 0.5%-point the medium-term interest rate floor used to compute the Total Debt Servicing Ratio (TDSR) and Mortgage Servicing Ratio (MSR). The MSR applies when buying HDB properties. This caps your monthly home loan to 30 per cent of your monthly household income. The TDSR applies to private bank loans....