RESALE prices of non-landed private homes in Singapore rose 0.5 per cent in June 2016 over the previous month, based on SRX Property’s flash estimates for last month released on Tuesday. This marks the fourth consecutive month-on-month price increase.
Last month’s price rise applies across the board to all three geographical regions. The prices went up 0.9 per cent in Core Central Region (CCR), 0.3 per cent in the city-fringe or Rest of Central Region (RCR) and 0.5 per cent in the suburbs or Outside Central Region (OCR).
For May 2016, SRX Property’s latest data reflects a revised month-on-month gain of 0.7 per cent in the overall resale price index for non-landed private homes, much higher than the 0.4 per cent increase that SRX Property had indicated earlier based on its flash estimates for May.
This upward revision was mainly due to the price increase in CCR being revised upwards to 2.3 per cent for May – compared to the 0.4 per cent increase for the region in that month based on SRX Property’s flash estimate. SRX said data for an unusually high number of transactions for OUE Twin Peaks in May was received afterJune 14, when the flash estimate was released.
Units sold by developers in delicensed projects such as OUE Twin Peaks are classified as resales by Urban Redevelopment Authority as well as SRX Property. Units in the project have sold well since its developer introduced a deferred payment scheme (DPS) in late March; however units sold under the scheme come with a lower discount, translating to a higher net price. Thus the DPS units put more upward pressure on the SRX price index for May.
Year on year, the June 2016 overall resale price index for non-landed private homes was up 1.1 per cent from June 2015. The CCR subindex posted a year-on-year price hike of 9.2 per cent while the subindices for RCR and OCR posted declines of 0.8 per cent and 1.5 per cent respectively over the same period.
The overall price index for June this year was down 5.9 per cent from its recent peak in January 2014.
SRX Property estimated that 754 non-landed private homes were resold last month, a slight decrease of 1.2 per cent from the 763 units resold in May 2016. Last month’s resale volume reflects a year-on-year increase of 27.4 per cent compared with the 592 units resold in June last year. However, last month’s resale volume was down 63.2 per cent from the peak of 2,050 units resold in April 2010.
OrangeTee’s head of research and consultancy Wong Xian Yang said the OCR faces the highest downside risk in terms of resale prices, as the majority of new private home completions are located in this region.
However, the CCR should continue to garner more interest, as developers explore more aggressive and innovative marketing schemes to sell their completed units in delicensed projects (which are classified as “resale”). This is especially the case for projects approaching their sales deadlines under conditions stipulated by the government for housing developers that have even one non-Singaporean shareholder or director, he added.