Private home prices in Singapore rose at a faster pace last year.
Private home prices in Singapore, excluding executive condominiums (ECs), increased at a faster pace last year. On the other hand, the decline in HDB resale prices slowed down.
According to latest statistics released by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) on Friday (25 Jan), private residential prices eased by 0.1 percent on a quarterly basis – the first drop in six straight quarters since Q2 2017. But for the whole of 2018, private home prices rose 7.9 percent following a 1.1 percent uptick in 2017.
“Prices of landed properties declined by 2.0 percent in Q4 2018, compared with a 2.3 percent increase in the previous quarter. Prices of non-landed properties increased by 0.5 percent, after remaining unchanged in the previous quarter. For the whole of 2018, prices of landed properties rose by 6.3 percent, while those of non-landed properties rose by 8.3 percent,” said URA.
In particular, prices of non-landed properties in the Core Central Region (CCR), Rest of Central Region (RCR) and Outside Central Region (OCR) grew at an annual rate of 6.7 percent, 7.4 percent and 9.4 percent respectively.
As for rents, it slid 1.0 percent during the last quarter of 2018 versus a 0.3 percent rise in the previous three-month period. For the whole of 2018, rents edged up by 0.6 percent, reversing the 1.9 percent fall in 2017.
Moreover, developers launched a total of 8,769 uncompleted private homes (excluding ECs) in 2018, up from 6,020 units in the previous year. However, sales declined from 10,566 units in 2017 to 8,795 units.
At the end of last quarter, the total supply of uncompleted private homes in the pipeline with planning approvals (excluding ECs) reached 51,498 units. Of this, 34,824 units remain unsold during the quarter compared to 30,467 units in Q3 2018.
Meanwhile, data from the Housing Board showed that for the whole of 2018, HDB resale prices contracted by 0.9 percent, an improvement from the 1.5 percent drop in 2017.
According to ERA Realty Network, HDB resale prices continue to fall due to several factors. For instance, there is a concern over dwindling leases as there are restrictions on the usage of CPF funds when buying HDB flats with a remaining lease of below 60 years.
Find HDB flats for sale or read our HDB guides and BTO guides
Mortgages offered by private banks also now come with smaller loan-to-value (LTV) limits of up to 75 percent compared to 70 percent previously. In addition, HDB flat buyers have become more conservative when making offers to sellers as housing loan interest rates have been increasing gradually in 2018, and buyers don’t want to pay above valuation, except for units with good attributes.
Data also revealed that HDB resale deals dropped by 20.2 percent from 7,063 cases in Q3 2018 to 5,637 cases in the period under review. On a yearly basis, resale volume dipped 1.8 percent in Q4 2018. For the entire year, resale transactions rose 4.6 percent to 23,099 cases versus 22,077 cases in 2017.
For 2019, ERA expects total HDB resale transactions to rise by about 5.0 percent year-on-year to over 24,000 units, while HDB resale prices could see a marginal increase of 1.0 percent.
HDB also nnounced that it will release around 15,000 new flats for sale in 2019. The first Build-To-Order (BTO) exercise will be held in February, offering about 3,100 HDB flats in Jurong West, Sengkang and Kallang Whampoa.
Get more details on the property market outlook for 2019 here
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this or other stories, email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
