March resales of private homes highest since July 2018 cooling measures: SRX

The private resale property market saw its biggest recovery in activity since being hit by the last bout of cooling measures, according to flash estimates from SRX Property on Tuesday.

The flash data showed the number of resale non-landed private homes sold last month jump 59.3 per cent to 830 units after the Chinese New Year seasonal lull in February when 521 units were transacted.

March resales reached the highest volume since the property curbs were implemented in July last year, but they are still 41.4 per cent low.

Meanwhile, the resale prices of condominiums and private apartments edged up 0.1 per cent rise in March from the previous month, for a second straight month-on-month increase, after dipping in December and January.

This brings private non-landed resale prices to 3.5 per cent higher than a year ago, after February’s month-on-month price rise was revised up to 0.6 per cent from an earlier estimate of a 0.5 per cent increase, according to the SRX data.

Resale prices are now just 0.6 per cent lower than their peak in July 2018 when the cooling measures struck.

The price rise last month came from the 1.3 per cent increase in the outlying areas or outside central region (OCR), where prices rose a third consecutive month. In contrast, resale prices in the prime districts or core central region (CCR) dropped by 2.1 per cent while remaining the same in the city fringes or rest of central region (RCR).

On sales volume, Christine Sun, OrangeTee & Tie head of research & consultancy, said the highest resale transactions in March were mainly from districts 19, 23, 18, 15, 16 and 5, where new projects were recently launched in some of these district, based on an analysis of URA Realis caveats.

Said Ms Sun: “The trend may indicate that marketing activities arising from new project launches may spur buying interest in the secondary market within the vicinity. We may expect buying interest for resale homes to pick-up further in selected locations as more projects will be launched in the coming months.”

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