Singapore private home sales likely to slow in short term following recent housing-market curbs, with slower immigration resulting in reduced primary sales volumes in medium to long term, says Royal Bank of Scotland, according to Dow Jones.

Noting Singapore government’s aim to consolidate pace of immigration inflow, house expects primary home sales to pull back to 7,000 units annually from average of 10,773 over 2005-2009.

“Recent cooling measures have so far had a very modest impact, but we expect this impact to increase or the government to take further measures,” says RBS, adding outlook for commercial properties better, with strong bids for retail, hotel sites sold under recent government land tenders boding well for higher capital values.

Remains cautious on stocks of developers like CityDev (C09.SG), prefers REITs, with top pick being Ascendas REIT (A17U.SG).