10,000 HDB flats release in 1/2 yr

HDB announced that some ten thousands HDB flats will be released in the next half a year, including the two BTO projects currently accepting applications -- Segar Meadows (412 units) & Compassvale Beacon (750 units), 4-rm flat priced at $180K - $233K. It will release another 6000 units if the demands keep strong.

Four privately developed DBSS (Design Build & Sell Scheme) projects for 1900 units will also be launched in the next 6 months.

There will be three EC projects in Yishun, Jurong West & SengKang next year, building 1300 units.

All together, it is expected to cool down the hot market. Resale index may be kept at the 3rd quarter level in short term but expected 3% ~ 5% down in 2 to 3 years time frame.

Good-value HDB

Based on COV (Cash-Over-Value), property agents pick out Queenstown, Marine Parade, Clementi & Bukit Merah as some towns where flats may be overpriced, many are old districts (aged 20 years or more).

Good buys can be found in more low-key towns surrounded by amenities, such as Woodlands, Jurong West, Choa Chu Kang and Pasir Ris.

Agents expect the climb of resale flat prices islandwise to slow over the next 12 months, after the heady rise in the 3rd quarter. The rentals of HDB flats, meanwhile, is still expected to grow over the next year, as more foreigners take up residence in Singapore and find private homes too expensive to live in.

---- abstracted from The Sunday Times Property Buying Guide.

Resale EC looking attractive

Resale executive condominium (EC) units are among the most undervalued mass market properties. Though similar to 99-yr leasehold condos in terms of quality, resellers price in a "too generous" discount for their flats. Today's newspaper reveals the following statistic data:

As the latest new EC on the market, La Casa in Woodlands achieves more than $550psf (24 sales in Oct. range from $498 to $601psf). While the resale price of nearby 7-year-old Northoaks and Woodvale only fetch some $420psf recently, though they've already climbed 35% since March.

Here are the site plans for La Casa and Northoaks, for reference.

One North

One-north zone comprises an area of about 200 hectares developed in 3 phases over the next 15-20 years. The Life Xchange (Biopolis), Central Xchange (Fusionpolis) and Vista Xchange in the first phase allow for the development of the dynamic core & platform.

Two condos in the science hub at Buona Vista were launched earlier this year, both are 99-yr leasehold projects.

One North Residence was launched in March & received excellent response, when 95% were sold out at $870-$1000psf even before public launch. Standing on an area of 170,738 s.f., the 405-unit project consist of 85 single-level & duplex SOHO-layout apartments for retail shops on the ground floor (SOHO refers to small-office, home-office). The condo will be developed by a joint venture between UOL Group, Low Keng Huat and privately-held Kheng Leong.

The 368-unit UE development The Rochester was launched more recently in July, at average $1300psf. It is right next door to the up-and-coming Rochester Park and is part of a mixed development that includes another block of 250 hotel rooms & 120 serviced apartments and a retail complex with about 100,000 sq ft of space.

Schroders unit trusts

The below table summaries all 35 unit trusts from Schroders' quarterly report. Looking backwards, I think only 5 funds highlighted in boldface are proven to be good-buy despite the market being bullish over the past several years. I would regret if I had bought any of the 18 funds in red.

Almost all funds charge up to 5% upfront and 1%~4% annually for various operational fees. The company that manages the funds surely makes handsome profit but the unitholders will have to depend on luck.

Schroders plc is a leading global, asset management company, with over 200 years of experience in the world's financial markets. In the year ended 31 December 2006 the company made a net profit of £221.9 million on net revenues of £967.2 million.

ECC Cryptography

Public key cryptography systems are usually based on the assumption that a particular mathematical operation is easy to do, but difficult to undo unless you know some particular secret that serves as the secret key. A recent development in this field is the so-called elliptic curve cryptography (ECC).

An elliptic curve with a underlying finite field Fp is a set of points on the curve with equation y^2 = x^3 + ax + b. The set of points on such a curve form an additive group where the basic function is addition. Two points P & Q are added up by drawing a line through both and taking as the outcome where the line intersects the curve. Certicom has a good online tutorial on ECC.

ECC relies upon the difficulty of the Elliptic Curve Discrete Logarithm Problem (ECDLP), the problem of finding k given points kG and G (remember that there is no division is defined on the group).

To use ECC all parties must agree on all the elements (p,a,b,G,n,h) defining the elliptic curve, that is domain parameters of the scheme:

• a & b define the curve (equation);
• p defines the finite field Fp in the prime case -- computations end by taking the remainder on division by p;
• G is the base point and defines the cyclic subgroup;
• order n represents the number of discrete points on the curve -- the smallest non-negative number such that nG=O;
• h is the cofactor and preferably h=1.

-------------------------------
Alice and Bob agree on an elliptic curve (domain parameters) and pick a certain point G on this curve. They can do this with Eve listening in. Alice next picks a random number As (not necessarily a point on the curve) and computes Ap = As*G. This is easy to compute.

Alice's public key is Ap and her secret key is As. Bob does the same thing and ends up with Bp and Bs.

Alice and Bob can now secretly agree on a key with which they can encrypt messages using secret key cryptography. The key simply is the product of Alice's public key and Bob's secret key (which is the same as the product of Alice's secret key and Bob's public key): As*Bp=As*Bs*G=Bs*Ap.

If Eve wanted to crack the key, she would have to reconstruct one of the secret keys. This means having to compute As given Ap and G (ECDLP), which is very difficult. If G is, say, 160 bits long, then Eve needs about 2^80 operations: If she can do a billion operations per second, this takes about 38 million years.
-------------------------------

As for other popular public key cryptosystems, no mathematical proof of difficulty has been published for ECC as of 2006. However, the U.S. National Security Agency has endorsed ECC technology by including it in its Suite B set of recommended algorithms. NIST recommends 15 elliptic curves in FIPS 186-2.

FEO condos

I think Far East Organization went crazy for its condo sales.

Gardenvista (99-yr LH) at the NW end of Bukit Timah Rd is selling at $1300+ psf, up from $680 about half a year ago. It has gotten TOP at the end 2006 but there are still unsold units. The showflat at #07-24 costs some $1.5m for the 1173 s.f. 3+S unit. The front area (within dotted line) by Dunearn Rd is the site of their another FH project, Jardin.

I heard that FEO is selling The Lakeshore near lakeside at $750-900psf, or some $100psf higher than the speculative units in the market. It consists of 848 units on 99-yr leased land, and was launched in 2003 at average $488psf. Some like its plenty of water/pool features & interior design, but some dislike its high density & multi-storey carpark.

Indeed, you will most likely find the first 3 large (half-page) property advertisements from FEO on every recent SundayTimes: the La Casa EC at Woodlands Ave.5, Hillview Regency at Bt. Batok East Ave.5 and The LakeShore. All have either completed (Hillview Regency completed in 2005) or been almost ready for TOP. Yet FEO still has significant amount of units on sale, with the ridiculously high price-tag.

I tend to think that one needs not waste time to view any FEO projects if he is sensitive to price. But I've to admit that they have sold several their overpriced units recently...

The Raintree

Nearby the newly launched Park Natura, The Raintree at Hindhede Dr. is another condo for those who love to stay with nature & rainforest, actually it is just by the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve and even shares a boundary with the cyclist path to the reserve. Expected TOP in the mid 2008, the 99-yr leasehold 315-unit condo by Frasers Centrepoint has appreciated in value, from below $500 in the end 2006 to $750+ psf in the recent (oct.) subsales.

I'm only wondering whether there will be any issues with the inserts & flies, especially in the common area (e.g. pool side). Oh, I forget to mention that all units have no balconies, only planters (PES).

Flickr

Flickr is a photo sharing web service. In addition to being a popular web site for users to share personal photographs, the service is widely used by blogger as a photo repository. It is now part of Yahoo! and available in eight language flavors.

Flickr allows photo submitters to organize images using tags, which enables finding images concerning a certain topic such as place name or subject matter. It also allows to organize photos into sets, which represents a form of categorical metadata. Sets may be grouped into collections. Flickr provides both private and public image storage. Private images are visible by the uploader and optionally by friends and/or family. Many allow their photos to be viewed by anyone, forming a large collaborative database of categorized photos.

I created a Flickr account and started to upload my recent tour photos. Welcome to browse my photo gallery.

MediShield

CPF offers the basic MediShield for those who will attend B2/C ward classes. The more comprehensive coverage is available at 5 private insurers for those who will attend B1 or better ward.

• Incomeshield from NTUC Income
• Healthshield from AIA
• Supremehealth from Great Eastern Life
• PRUShield from Prudential
• MyShield from Aviva

All plans work similarly: a deductible amount (first $1000 - $3000 of the bill) per policy year and a co-insurance percentage (20% - 10% of the claimable amount above the deductible) will be borne by the patient itself (either by MediSave or by cash); the rest can be claimed back from the insurer, subject to yearly and lifetime limits.

With one of the plans, the hospitalisation bill is typically reduced to a few thousand dollars after claiming the medical insurance.

Rider may be available to cover the co-insurance and deductible (therefore the insured pays zero of his hospitalisation bill). For example, Incomeshield Plus Rider helps to pay off everything up to the plan limits, with additional premium of $52, $98 & $266 for the above three age groups.

Park Natura condo

Park Natura across from Bukit Botok Nature park was publicly launched last weekend. The free-hold 192-unit UIC development has gone well so far: priced at an average of $1000 psf, more than 100 units have been sold at the private soft launch.

The condo is featured on the hill top located at Upper Bukit Timah overlooking two nature reserves. It is of the last few still offering DPS -- besides the total 5%+5% upon signing the purchase agreement, the rest payment is deferred till Jan 2009. Typical 2-BR unit has slightly more than 1000 sq.ft. (i.e. quantum about $1m) and 3-BR some 1400 sq.ft.

WidSets

WidSets uses multi-applications called widgets to push updates of pre-selected web service directly to your phone. User can find news & information, stay in touch with email & blogs, play games, share pictures and more. He can keep his favorite web content with him in his phone memory and read news update, blogs or mails at his convenience, e.g. offline.

There are currently over 2700 widgets in the library to choose from, such as the BBC News, AccuWeather, eBay or Wikipedia. User can also easily create his own widgets in a few min. which works with the web feed.

A web feed is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors syndicate a web feed, thereby allowing users to subscribe to it. Making a collection of web feeds accessible in one spot is known as aggregation, which is performed by an Internet aggregator. In the typical scenario of using web feeds, a content provider publishes a feed link on their site which end users can register with an aggregator program (also called a feed reader or a news reader) running on their own machines; doing this is usually as simple as dragging the link from the web browser to the aggregator. When instructed, the aggregator asks all the servers in its feed list if they have new content; if so, the aggregator either makes a note of the new content or downloads it. Aggregators can be scheduled to check for new content periodically.