Singapore’s private housing market recorded its first decline in prices in over a year Tuesday as it moved toward a cooling trend after an extended period of rallying. Preliminary data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority shows that the private home price index fell 1.1% in the third quarter of 2024 from the quarter before.
This amounts to a reversal of the gains made in the second quarter and is the first decline since the second quarter of 2023. For the first three quarters of this year, private home prices grew by only 1.1%, an outright slowdown compared with the 3.9% gain during the same period last year.
The downtrend in price was accompanied by a sales transactions volume which fell by approximately 11% in the third quarter compared with the previous three months. Sales transactions from January to September of 2024 decreased by 8.1% as compared to the same period the previous year. In general, this reflected a more guarded attitude on the part of the buyers.
The URA pointed out that though macroeconomic conditions have generally remained stable, uncertainty in short-term economic outlook has made the market mood very sensitive to geo-political events and changes in global interest rates. Some of the would-be buyers may have kept completing their purchases of homes in the third quarter in hope of the rate cut by the US Federal Reserve last September.
Even as the URA predicted trimming, it sounded a cautionary note that Singapore’s mortgage rates are likely to be high compared to the record-low levels seen throughout the last decade. “Households should remain prudent when buying properties and taking up mortgage loans,” it said.
The URA estimates are based on the contract prices and sales data which the real estate developers have submitted up until mid-September, but a more comprehensive report on property statistics for the third quarter has promised to come out on October 25.
In contrast, in private market resale prices for HDB flats in Singapore increased 2.5% from the previous quarter, with resale volumes up by 20%. More than 80% of Singaporeans reside in public housing, leading local authorities to take some measures recently to temper the public housing market. However, the government will continue to monitor the property market and make relevant policy adjustments should that be necessary so as not to threaten a stable and sustainable property market, according to HDB.
Read More News @ https://thesingaporereview.com/news/
