Overall private home prices in Singapore rose by 0.8 percent in Q4 2017, marking its second straight quarter of increase versus the 0.7 percent growth in Q3 2017, according to the latest data released by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) on Friday (26 January).
According to Colliers International’s Research Head Tricia Song, the budding recovery reversed the weakness in the first half of last year. Consequently, prices of private residential properties edged up by 1.1 percent for the entirety of 2017 compared to a dip of 3.1 percent in the prior year.
Excluding executive condominiums (ECs), home builders launched a total of 6,020 uncompleted private houses last year versus 7,877 units in 2016. Despite the lower launches, they sold 10,566 private dwellings compared to 7,972 units in 2016.
“The twin effect of lower new launches and returning buying interest has kept prices of private homes trending upwards… With the indices of all segments (CCR, RCR and OCR) recording at least two consecutive quarters of growth, the price recovery appears to be on a firm footing,” said JLL’s National Director for Research & Consultancy Ong Teck Hui.
He noted that the number of units released last year was the lowest in 13 years, and developers are holding back their launches to leverage on rising home prices.
Meanwhile, Colliers’ Song expects developers to sell a total of 12,600 private homes, excluding ECs, for the whole of 2018. This would not only exceed last year’s 10,566 units, but also the highest since 14,948 units were taken up in 2013.
This article was edited by Keshia Faculin.
