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How To Use Web Developer Tools To Read Economic Situation
by Fernando Hal (cheatad.com)

For anyone who has been in Singapore for some time, it is easy to understand Singaporeans obsession with property price and transactions. Many Singaporeans are said to be “asset rich, cash poor”, since most of them do not really save, but by culture generally own their own relatively expensive dwellings.

Thus, any increase in property price generally increase their so-called net worth. While majority are not planning to sell the property, it is surely a huge feel-good boost. And even among those minority few that own huge load of cash, many make their fortune from real estate transactions.

For that reason, it is very interesting to know what’s the trend in Singapore property market. In the title, I mentioned that Singapore real estate is going down. I refer to the last quarter, Quarter 4 of year 2009. Now’ let’s see how we can come to that conclusion.

Google Search Insight
Let’s use Google Search Insight to find out the trend for people searching the term “property”.

As we can see, the search interest for “property” peak in July 2009, and since then going down. In late October there is short mini-peak, probably due to release of 2009 third quarter property transaction data by Singapore housing board and authority. After that it continues the slide. Somewhat similar trend is shown for property for sale and condo for sale.

A slightly different result is the search interest for HDB for sale. HDB (Housing Development Board) is generally used to refer to the heavily subsidized public housing developed by the housing board. As you can see in the graph there is a short peak in early October, probably due to release of reserve housing flat by the board. Other than that, the search interest in on the way down.

Alexa Rank
Another indicator we can use is the Alexa rank. While we know Alexa rank isn’t exactly the most accurate, it is generally good to know the visitor trend for particular one site, specially those with high rank above 100k.

Now, let’s take a look at the most popular and important Singapore property website, hdb.gov.sg, the official site for government housing board.

Alexa Ranking - Smaller number indicates better ranking

Ignoring the one-day “Yesterday” data, which is too short for any indicative statistic trend, we can see that ranking of the HDB site has been dropping from a 3-month 30,522 to 1-month 33,842 to 7-day 37,507.

Let’s look at another site, sg-house.com, one of the largest property listing site in Singapore.

Alexa Ranking - Smaller number indicates better ranking

While the 7-day ranking show a slight improvement, the site’s Alexa rank has been dropping from a 3-month ranking of 73,649 to 1-month 82,515. That’s a drop of 9000 places over just 2 months period.

Looking at the Alexa data for Singapore’s 3 biggest bank (DBS, OCBC, and UOB) also show similar result, probably an indication of less interest for mortgage loan.

Then the logic comes as follow: the web search and visit interest dropping indicates general interest for property is dropping. When there is less interest, there is less transaction. And when there is less transaction, usually price drop is impending. I would then conclude that property price will probably be going down in either Q4 2009 or Q1 2010.

Do you think this analysis is meaningful? Have any other example to show? Let us know in the comment below !

Disclaimer:
Interesting nevertheless, this information is certainly not strong enough to be used as basis of any financial decision. Always consult your professional financial / real estate adviser before making any such decision.

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