Small cars more popular after announcement of new car—buying measures

SINGAPORE: It is the first weekend since the government announced the tightening of car loans and increases in additional registration fees for more expensive cars.

Some car dealers said the popularity of small cars has gone up.

A showroom which sells mostly small cars with an open market value of less than S$20,000 said it has seen a 30 per cent increase in potential car buyers, compared to weekends before the measures were announced. The fees for such cars remain unchanged.

As for other showrooms selling larger, luxury cars — dealers said they have not increased prices yet.

These showrooms still have some Certificates of Entitlement (COEs) left from the previous round of bidding, which are unaffected by the new measures.

Such cars would fetch 10 to 100,000 dollars more in additional registration fees.

Johnson Tay, sales director at Jack Cars, said the company has not seen a drop in interest for now.

He said: "Due to some finance companies, the interest rate and loan quantum has not been decreased yet. Most of the customers will still come to us because of this kind of current interest rate and loan quantum."

— CNA/xq