Private home prices in Singapore continued their decline in the second quarter of this year, according to flash estimates released by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) on Friday (Jul 1).
The private residential property index fell to 140.0 points in the second quarter, from 140.6 points in the previous quarter. This represented a decline of 0.4 per cent, compared with the 0.7 per cent decline in the previous quarter.
Prices of non-landed private residential properties rose by 0.2 per cent in Core Central Region (CCR), compared to the 0.3 per cent increase in the previous quarter. In the Rest of Central Region (RCR), prices rose by 0.3 per cent, while prices in Outside Central Region (OCR) declined by 0.7 per cent, after registering a 1.3 per cent decline in the previous quarter.
The flash estimates are compiled based on transaction prices given in contracts submitted for stamp duty payment and data on new units sold by developers up till mid-June. The statistics will be updated four weeks later when URA releases the full real estate statistics for the second quarter of 2016, which would capture more data from the stamp duty records and the take-up of new projects.
According to the URA, past data have shown that the difference between the quarterly price changes indicated by the flash estimate, and the actual price changes, could be “significant” when the change is small. The URA advised the public to “interpret the flash estimates with caution”.
Source : Channel NewsAsia – 1 Jul 2016