Category Archives: Property Market / Real Estate

Govt measures cool landed homes market

Sales of landed properties in Singapore have fallen in the last few years as a result of the government’s cooling measures, according to analysts.

Landed homes comprise approximately five percent of all residential properties in Singapore. As such, these units are highly-sought-after by buyers and investors due to their scarcity.

Despite this, the sales value and transaction volume of landed properties have been falling in recent times.

In 1H2013, the total number of transactions in this segment fell by 49 percent to 737 units compared to the same period a year ago. This also translates to a significant 67 percent decline compared to the first half of 2011, noted HSR Property Consultants.

Total sales also fell more than 70 percent in the first half to nearly S$500 million.

Moving forward, sales are expected to slow further due to the new mortgage rules introduced by the central bank. Nonetheless, Knight Frank feels that prices in this segment will stabilise, with a one to two percent year-on-year gain by end-2013.

And while most purchases of landed homes are by high-net-worth individuals, one in five own HDB flats.

“This year, we have a HDB addressee who bought a property located in Windsor Park, Upper Thomson. He spent about S$25 million and that transaction was done sometime in January this year,” said Donald Han, Special Adviser at HSR.

“One of the second highest transactions from that base was Oei Tiong Ham Park. It was bought by another HDB buyer at a price of S$20 million in April this year.”

Source – PropertyGuru – 4 Jul 2013

Private property prices up 0.8% in Q2

Urban Redevelopment Authority’s (URA) flash estimate of private residential property price index shows prices rising 0.8 per cent in second quarter of 2013.

The private residential property index rose 1.7 points from 213.2 points in 1st quarter 2013 to 214.9 points in 2nd quarter 2013.

URA said prices of non-landed private residential properties in Core Central Region declined by 0.2 per cent in 2nd quarter 2013. In the previous quarter, it increased by 0.6 per cent.

Prices in Rest of Central Region saw the same 0.2 per cent rate of increase as the previous quarter.

For Outside Central Region, prices increased by 3 per cent in 2nd quarter 2013. It was 1.4 per cent in the previous quarter.

URA will release the full real estate figures for 2nd quarter 2013 in four weeks’ time.

Private Residential Property Price Index

Source – CNA – 3 Jul 2013