The private residential market went in 2 opposite directions last year – while rates rose northwards, the number of transactions went southbound. The rate increase was modest – up by merely 2.7% for the entire last year – even though it did exceed earlier flash estimates of a 2.5% gain.However the drop in the figures of private residential units transacted was more striking – decrease by 13.5% to 19,150 units, commented the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) yesterday.This was after a recent news of a 31% sharp decline in resale property transactions, as purchasers were attracted by the bountiful availability of new projects, said Miss Tricia Song, the leader of the research team in Singapore for Colliers International.Property resale transactions accounted for 48% of all sales in the last quarter of the previous year, with actual transacted figures at 2,342 units, which is slightly less than the 2,378 units in the third quarter.

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.”

“Although property developers are not really under threat by the additional buyer’s stamp duty (ABSD) for now, there are some worries on how the sales momentum in 2020 will be affected since the stock for smaller units are running low, while the bigger units stay unsold.”Rates of landed houses jumped 5.7% in 2019 whereas those of non-landed residential units increased by only 1.9%.Property developers have launched a total of 2,226 private residential homes that are uncompleted (excluding ECs) for sale in the last quarter of 2019, as compared to 3,628 residential units in the third quarter.There were 11,345 residential apartments launched for sale in 2019, an increase from 8,769 in 2018.Real estate developers didn’t launch any new EC developments  for sale in the last quarter of 2019, however 59 units from earlier launches were sold.There is a current stock of 49,173 uncompleted private residential units, excluding ECs, in the construction pipeline with planning approvals as at Dec 31 2019, as compared with 50,964 as at Sept 30 2019.About thirty thousand or so of these remained unsold as at Dec 31 2019. You can see the Dairy Farm Residences Balance Units to know what units are left in this mixed commercial and residential development.Senior director of research & consultancy at JLL, Mr Ong Teck Hui, commented that the large supply of private residential homes is easing, however “the supply of housing in the pipeline is rather significant, and it can take till year 2021” to reach normal levels.

Source: https://www.straitstimes.com/business/property/singapore-private-home-prices-inch-up-27-for-2019

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