With developers ramping up their launches, Singapore saw a total of 2,989 uncompleted private homes launched for sale in the first quarter of 2019, up 80.4 percent from the previous quarter. Of these, about 50 percent were from new 13 projects.
The number of new units launched in the Core Central Region (CCR) nearly doubled to 363 in Q1 2019 from 182 in Q4 2018. This comes as five of the 13 new projects are in the CCR.
The volume of units launched in the Outside Central Region also soared 202 percent quarter-on-quarter to 1,689, primarily from two large-scale new launches – Treasure At Tampines and The Florence Residences.
Consequently, sales volume in the CCR and OCR surged 115.7 percent and 41.5 percent quarter-on-quarter to 192 units and 1,009 units, respectively. The Rest of Central Region, on the other hand, saw the number of new units sold drop 38.4 percent to 637.
Overall, the city-state saw 1,838 new private housing units sold in Q1 2019, up 0.1 percent from the previous quarter.
The 2,203-unit Treasure at Tampines emerged as the top selling project island-wide.
“From the time this project launched in March, 289 units were sold at an average price of about $1,3371 psf,” said Savills Singapore CEO Marcus Loo.
He noted that while sales at some pre-launched projects were buoyed by higher commissions as well as news of the upcoming first phase development of the Cross Island Line, take-up rates for newly launched projects in the RCR and OCR eased.
RCR posted an initial take-up rates of 13.5 percent in Q1 2019, down from the 27.4 percent registered in the period 6 July to 31 December 2018 or after the cooling measures.
OCR also recorded a take-up rate of 7.6 percent, also down from the 17.4 percent seen from 6 July to 31 December 2018.
Meanwhile, the take-up rate in the CCR stood at 13.2 percent in Q1 2019, up from 9.1 percent in the 6 July to 31 December 2018 period.
“Pent-up demand from the high net wealth class for prime-quality units, such as those at Boulevard 88, is likely to have been the reason for the uptick in new sale take-up rates in Q1 2019,” said Loo.
“Concurrently, prices for such properties are more resilient compared with those in the other market segments and more inelastic to their buyers, such as high net worth individuals.”
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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
