In the bigger picture, there were 8,949 units sold last year as compared with the much higher 13,009 in 2018.

New private home transactions by property developers jumped by 12.7% to 9,912 units in the earlier year.

“The new launch private real estate sector is expected to continue to make headwinds in the market because of the many projects scheduled for sale in 2020,” declared Mr Desmond Sim, head of research of South-east Asia at CBRE. One such new launch worth paying attention to is Penrose At Aljunied.

Developers transacted in all 2,443 residential property units (excluding ECs) in the last quarter of 2019, as compared with the combined 3,281 units in the first three months.

Prices were 2.7% higher overall in 2019, compared with 2018, however that was a significant decline from the 7.9% spike from 2017 to 2018.

The key difference is due to the effects of the cooling measures that were implemented in mid 2018. That’s why the its important to plan your home purchase carefully.

Miss Christine Li, the head of research for Singapore and South-east Asia at Cushman & Wakefield, named 2019 a “not-too-bad year” for the private home market as the rise in new launch sales figures and average price increase assisted to mitigate the snail-paced take-up rate in volumes.

Miss Li attributed the decline in resale property volumes to the slow down of en bloc transactions after the cooling measures were imposed.

She commented: “This year we anticipate the market movements to be about the same as last year, since there is not much change to the market fundamentals. Interest rates are predicted to stay low and the economy is predicted to improve only slightly this year.”