Here's a quick guide to the already infamous property cooling measures

Including 3 reasons why these are necessary.

According to CIMB, over the weekend, the government introduced its most comprehensive and toughest set of cooling measures to-date. These are aimed at curtailing physical prices which have shown signs of re-acceleration in recent months.

The new set of measures are formulated to 1) address overexuberance in residential property investments, 2) cool foreign demand, and 3) instill greater financial prudence among buyers in the public housing segment.

Here's more from CIMB:

Cooling measures for the industrial property sector was also introduced for the first time. As a summary, the following measures will take effect from Jan 12 2013:

• ABSD rates will rise between 5-7% pts across the board;
• The new group of buyers affected by the ABSD will include PRs (first property) and Singapore Citizens (second property);
• LTV limits on housing loans will be lowered by 10-20% pts;
• Minimum cash down payments for housing loans will be raised by 15% pts;
• MSRs for public housing loans will rise by 5% pts;
• PRs will no longer be allowed to sublet entire flats and need to dispose their HDB flat within six months of purchasing a private property;
• Rules of maximum strata floor area, sales of dual-key units and minimum holding period before launch of projects in the EC segment will be revised;
• Private enclosed spaces (PES) and private roof terraces (RTs) will be treated as GFA computation; and
• Seller’s Stamp Duty (SSD) of 5-15% imposed on sale of industrial properties.

The minimum cash downpayment required from a buyer (individual) with one or more outstanding housing loans has been raised from 10% of the valuation limit (lower of current property value or purchase price) to 25%.

The minimum cash downpayment has not been changed for individual borrowers who do not have any outstanding housing loans currently.