The Government will inject an even larger supply of private housing in its land sales programme for the first half of next year “if demand continues to be strong” – surpassing the record supply pushed out in the second half of this year.
National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan gave this assurance to prospective private home buyers in a written reply to a parliamentary question by Nominated MP Calvin Cheng.
Mr Mah’s reply was released on Monday evening as the latest data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority showed a surge last month in sales of new private homes, with 1,544 units sold – almost twice the 847 units transacted in June.
For the second half of this year, the Government is making available sites that can yield about 13,900 private housing units, of which about 8,100 units will be from sites on the Confirmed List. Mr Mah pointed out that this was the largest supply the Government has offered since the land sales programme started in 1991.
As at the second quarter of this year, there were about 61,800 uncompleted private residential units in the pipeline. Of these, 32,600 units have not been sold yet.
Ngee Ann Polytechnic real estate lecturer Nicholas Mak noted that the oncoming supply “will slow down the rate of growth of private home prices”. “But that will only also happen in some time next year. Based on recent statistics, demand for mass market homes is still very high,” said Mr Mak.
Source : Today – 18 Aug 2010