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2Q 2018 URA/HDB Real Estate Statistics

Latest Property Real Estate News - Published on 27/07/2018

PRIVATE RESIDENTIAL
7.3 per cent price growth in first half of 2018, strong contrast to -0.5 per cent experienced within same period of 2017.
URA’s Q2 2018 data shows that prices of private homes in Singapore rose by 3.4 per cent quarter-on-quarter (Q-o-Q), marking the fourth quarter of positive growth since prices started declining in Q3 2013.

The real estate market is showing signs of recovery with the uplift in property prices in the recent quarters partly contributed by the robust land bids at Government Land Sales (GLS) and collective sales sites. The performance for the first half of 2018 was as expected with 7.3 per cent price increase.

Chief Executive Officer of PropNex Realty, Mr Ismail Gafoor said, “While the market witnessed a continued positive growth this quarter, the repercussions of the sudden cooling measures are expected to be felt in the coming quarters. Buyers and investors might start to adapt a “wait and see” attitude to gauge the effects of the measures. At recent launches, developers are also adjusting their development prices sensitively with some offering discounts of up to 10 per cent, factoring in the Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty (ABSD) increase that their buyers will incur. These will indirectly correlate to the price index movements in the coming quarters.”

Mr Ismail predict that 2018 will witness an overall price growth of 7 to 9 per cent.

Continuing the streak of robust transactions in previous quarter, overall volume of private residential homes (New Sale, Sub Sale and Resale) in 2Q 2018 summed up to 7,186 transactions. This totalled the amount of transactions
for first half of 2018 to be 12,514.

This is 3.3 per cent higher compared y-o-y to the first half of 2017 where 12,107 units were recorded.

Resale segment took the lead with 4,700 units in Q2 2018, a 28.2 per cent increase from previous quarter. Mr Ismail highlighted, “We can expect the resale segment to potentially outperform the rest of the segments in the third and fourth quarters of this year driven by to two reasons. Firstly, prices of resale properties are relatively lower, around 20 per cent cheaper than new launches at similar location. Secondly, due to the strong demand by en bloc owners who are looking for immediate replacement homes.”

On the New launch segment, Mr Ismail shared, “With the announcement of cooling measures, we may expect subdued demand in the coming quarters from buyers, who will evaluate their options post-cooling measures. However, with the surge in sales in the month of July as buyers rushed to beat the cooling measures dateline, the sales in July will contribute significantly to the total volume of new homes transactions for 2018, which is expected to be at 8,000 units”

Overall for 2018, Mr Ismail predicts that the overall volume of private property transaction to be at the range of 24,000 to 25,000 mark, with resale transactions taking the lead with 16,000 units.

PUBLIC HOUSING

Public housing segment showing signs of consolidation in the first half of 2018
In Q2 2018, Prices of Public Housing experienced its first price growth (0.1 per cent) since Q4 2015 where prices increased by 1.0 per cent.

Mr Ismail commented, “As this segment is not affected by the revisions to the ABSD, we believe it will depict greater resilience in the market in the coming quarters. HDB resale properties will also benefit from the demand from some en bloc owners considering bigger sized resale flats as their replacement home in the second half of the year. There is a likelihood that HDB prices may well experience a muted growth of up to 1 per cent in 2018.”

The HDB resale segment witnessed 5,941 transactions this quarter. Mr Ismail believes that this healthy figure will pave the way for 21,000 to 22,000 units transacted by end of 2018.