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Private home prices in Singapore continue to fall in Q2: URA

Posted on 25 Jul 2014 | Comments Off

URBAN Redevelopment Authority’s official private home price index fell one per cent in the second quarter of this year compared with the first quarter.

This is a smaller drop than the 1.3 per cent decline in the previous quarter. It is also the third straight quarter of price decline.

Giving a geographical split of non-landed private home prices, URA said prices in Core Central Region (CCR) fell 1.5 per cent in Q2, a bigger drop than the 1.1 per cent decline in Q1.

CCR covers the Downtown Core planning area, Sentosa and the traditional districts 9, 10 and 11.

In the city-fringe, or Rest of Central Region, prices eased 0.4 per cent, a smaller decline compared with the 3.3 per cent drop in Q1.

In suburban locations, or the Outside Central Region, prices decreased 0.9 per cent in Q2. In the first quarter, they had dipped 0.1 per cent.

Prices of landed properties fell 1.7 per cent in Q2, higher than the 0.7 per cent decline in the previous quarter.

Rentals of private residential properties fell by 0.6 per cent in Q2 – compared with the 0.7 per cent decline in Q1.

Developers launched 2,843 uncompleted private residential units (excluding executive condominiums or ECs) for sale in Q2 compared to 1,964 units in Q1. They sold 2,665 private homes in Q2 excluding ECs – an increase from the 1,744 units they sold in the first three months of this year.

No new EC units were launched for sale in Q2, but developers sold 154 EC units in Q2, compared to the 149 units sold in Q1.

There were 1,314 resale transactions in the April-June quarter of this year, up from 941 transactions in the first three months.

There were 139 subsale transactions in Q2 compared to 128 transactions in Q1.

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Posted in Property Market / Real Estate

Tagged private home price index, Private Residential Property, rentals, Sentosa, Singapore Property Market, URA, Urban Redevelopment Authority

Premature to ease property measures: MAS

Posted on 25 Jul 2014 | Comments Off

While the recent property cooling measures are working, it is still too early to relax those measures since property prices remain high, said the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and reported in the media.

“Risk factors have not changed,” MAS Managing Director Ravi Menon said at the MAS annual report 2013/2014 press conference yesterday.

He noted that property prices soared 60 percent in the past four years and dropped by just 3.3 percent during the last three quarters.

Much like China, Singapore is concerned that potential property bubble might destabilise the financial industry and eventually push up inflation. With this, China introduced various measures which include credit curbs as well as restrictions on buying more than one home.

Similarly, Singapore implemented a series of property-market curbs since 2009. The most recent was rolled out in June 2013, when authorities tightened property loan rules to discourage imprudent borrowing.

Aside from increasing processing times for home loans, the measures also slowed housing, said analysts.

“It is premature to ease property measures now,” said Menon. This is because global interest rates are still at historic lows while debt levels among highly-leveraged households are high, explained MAS.

It forecasts economic growth of between two percent and four percent this year, with a slight increase expected in Q2 2014. .

“However, there are downside risks to growth outlook,” said Menon, citing conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East.

MAS now expects inflation to grow at a pace of between 1.5 percent and 2.0 percent in 2014, compared to an earlier forecast of a 1.5 percent to 2.5 percent increase.

Menon attributed the decline in overall inflation to slowing home and car prices.