One of the most dreaded policy tweaks by MAS is loan curbs – restrictions on how much you can borrow. In almost every round of cooling measures, we’ve come to learn that nothing makes buyers shrink back more than a tightened Loan to Value (LTV) ratio, or a stricter Total Debt Servicing Ratio (TDSR). In today’s chart, we look at the effect this measure has had on the property market: Source: SRI A quick note on loan curbs versus cooling measures Loan curbs tend to be rolled out with other cooling measures; but technically speaking, a loan curb is not a cooling measure. TDSR, for instance, is not a temporary measure to cool housing prices; it is a fundamental change in the loan process. At this point, most market watchers have theorised that cooling measures aren’t temporary at all, and are here to stay. But with loan curbs, we know for sure that these aren’t part of temporary measures....