However, resale flat prices within non-mature estates climbed 0.9 percent year-on-year as most have reached their minimum occupation period.
Prices of Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats marginally declined by 0.2 percent in September from the previous month as mature estates and non-mature estates prices declined 0.3 percent and 0.1 percent, respectively, showed SRX data.
However, resale flat prices within non-mature estates climbed 0.9 percent year-on-year.
Christine Sun, head of research and consultancy at OrangeTee and Tie, attributed the growth in prices to “more flats reaching their five-year minimum occupation period in non-mature estates, and these flats are able to command good prices given their fresher leases and newer product designs”.
With this, she expects overall prices to “remain flat for the rest of the year, trending between 0 to -1 percent for the whole of this year”.
HDB resale volume in September dropped 4.9 percent month-on-month and 6.3 percent year-on-year to 1,875 units.
Sun explained that the month-on-month decrease in transaction appears to be a seasonal decline given that the number of deals registered in September for the last three years have also dipped.
A four-room unit at The Pinnacle @ Duxton and a 34-year old executive maisonette at Bishan registered the highest transacted price achieved for a resale flat in September at $1.04 million.
“Resale flats may now be more attractive to some buyers given the recent policy changes such as enhancing the housing grants and allowing buyers to use more Central Provident Funds monies to buy HDB flats,” said Sun.
“However, we have noticed more sellers raising their asking prices after the policy changes, which may slow down the pace of sales growth in the coming months.”
With HDB resale data showing that over 15,000 resale flats have been sold during the first eight months of the year, OrangeTee and Tie expects to see between 22,000 and 24,000 resale transactions for the whole of 2019.
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Victor Kang, Digital Content Specialist at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this or other stories, email victorkang@propertyguru.com.sg
