Prices of resale HDB flats declined 1.4 percent in Q4 2014 from the previous quarter, according to flash estimates from the housing board.
Although this is lower than the 1.7 percent decline seen in Q3 2014, HDB data shows a fifth consecutive quarter of price falls.
Notably, HDB adopted the Stratified Hedonic Regression method this time to compute the resale price index (RPI).
Explaining why the new calculation method was used, HDB said: “The Stratified Hedonic Regression method will control for variations in flat attributes of the resale flats transacted, thus better reflecting price changes over time. This allows the index to continue serving its purpose of providing timely and reliable information on resale market movements.”
It added the previous RPI from Q1 1990 to Q3 2014 was re-scaled to the new base period of Q1 2009, but the quarterly percentage changes remain unchanged.
More detailed public housing data will be released later this month.
Meanwhile, HDB plans to launch four Build-To-Order (BTO) exercises in 2015, offering a total of 16,900 flats. This includes BTO flats in new areas such as Bidadari and Punggol Northshore.
The first BTO exercise will be held in February where about 3,940 flats in Bukit Batok, Geylang and Hougang will be launched.
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Singapore Editor of PropertyGuru Group, wrote this story. To contact him about this or other stories email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
