The URA’s price index rose 0.5% in Q3, compared with the 3.4% increase in the quarter before.
Private residential property prices grew at a much slower pace in the third quarter of 2018 as the government’s latest round of property cooling measures in July took their toll.
The Urban Redevelopment Authority’s private residential property price index rose 0.5 percent in Q3 to 149.7 points, compared with the 3.4 percent increase seen in the previous quarter.
More: Sentiment Among Property Developers Down On July Cooling Measures
Landed property prices climbed 2.3 percent, while prices of non-landed properties remained unchanged.
This comes as only the Core Central Region (CCR) registered a price increase of 1.3 percent. The Rest of Central Region (RCR) and Outside Central Region (OCR) saw prices drop 1.3 percent and 0.1 percent respectively.
With the slower growth in prices, take-up rate during the period was the highest in over four quarters at 3,012 units.
“Despite the healthy take-up, it was unable to match the number of launches during the quarter – at its highest number since Q2 2013,” said Desmond Sim, CBRE’s head of research for Singapore and Southeast Asia.
“This resulted in an increase in the number of unsold units to 30,467 units (excluding ECs) in Q3 2018 – from 26,943 units last quarter.”
Moreover, there is a potential supply of “14,200 units from the awarded GLS (6,700) and en bloc sites (7,500), which have not been granted planning approval but will be coming onto the market next year”.
With this, Sim expects growth in the price index to be “in the positive region albeit more moderate or zero growth in the next 12 months”.
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Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this or other stories, email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
