Tag Archives: Singapore Property

The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) released today the real estate statistics for 1st Quarter 2012.

Prices of private residential properties fell marginally by 0.1% in 1st Quarter 2012, compared with the 0.2% increase in the previous quarter. This was the first quarterly fall in prices since 2nd Quarter 2009, following nine consecutive quarters of declining price increases.

Prices of non-landed properties in Core Central Region (CCR)1 and Rest of Central Region (RCR) both fell by 0.6% in 1st Quarter 2012, compared with the 0.5% and 0.1% respective increase in the previous quarter. For Outside Central Region (OCR), prices increased by 1.1% in 1st Quarter 2012, compared with an increase of 0.6% in the previous quarter.

Rentals of private residential properties registered a lower rate of increase compared to the previous quarter. Rentals increased by 0.3% in 1st Quarter 2012, less than the 0.4% increase in the previous quarter. The rate of increase in rentals has been moderating for three consecutive quarters, since 3Q2011.

New Launches

A total of 6,903 uncompleted private residential units were launched for sale by developers in 1st Quarter 2012, compared with 4,105 units in 4th Quarter 2011.

6,458 uncompleted private residential units were sold by developers in 1st Quarter 2012, compared with 3,525 units in 4th Quarter 2011. Take-up of shoe-box units (i.e. smaller than 50 sqm) accounted for 27% (or 1,764 units) of new sales in the quarter.

Lower-priced units less than $750,000 accounted for 42% (or 2,766 units) of new sales in 1Q2012, much higher than the 25% (or 911 units) seen last quarter. Overall, many of these units are located in the suburbs, as 82% of the new units sold by developers were from OCR in 1Q2012.

Prices of resale private homes increased by 0.8 per cent in March, after falling 1.6 per cent February.

This is according to the Singapore Residential Price Index (SRPI) flash estimates published by the Institute of Real Estate Studies at National University of Singapore (NUS).

It noted an increase in the housing transactions volume in March and it is possible that the market may be shaking off the impact of the cooling measure introduced last December.

The SRPI figures showed that while houses prices softened in the first two months of the year, prices have shown a slight rebound in March.

In particular, resale prices of small apartments rose most sharply.

The SRPI for March showed that prices for small units with floor area of 506 square feet and below increased by 2.8 per cent in March, compared with a 0.8 per cent decline in February.

Excluding small units, prices of resale private homes in the central area were higher by 0.8 per cent, while those in the non-central regions rose by 0.7 per cent.

These were much higher than February’s numbers.

In February, the SRPI for resale units in the central area was down by two per cent while units in the non-central area fell 1.2 per cent.