Foreign Property News | Posted by Aye Myat Thu
The drop in private home prices wasn’t surprising considering the weaker market sentiment following the introduction of new cooling measures last year, said Tricia Song, head of research for Singapore at Colliers International.
Private home prices fell for the second straight quarter, dropping 0.6 percent in the first quarter of 2019 from the previous three-month period, according to the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s (URA) flash estimates released on Monday (April 1).
In fact, caveats registered to-date in URA Realis showed that there were 3,215 transactions of private homes in Q1 2019, a sharp 40 percent year-on-year decline from the 5,328 units seen in Q1 2018, noted Ong Teck Hui, senior director of research and consultancy at JLL Singapore.
“Buyers have become more cautious and selective and not in a hurry to purchase, as prices are easing and the significant supply in the sales pipeline would be offering more options to consider,” he said.
The Core Central Region (CCR) led the price decline, falling 2.9 percent from the previous quarter or the sharpest quarterly decline since Q2 2009 when prices fell 5.2 percent.
The Rest of Central Region (RCR) saw prices dip 0.2 percent, while prices in the Outside Central Region (OCR) were unchanged.
Meanwhile, resale prices of HDB flats also continued a downward trend, declining 0.3 percent quarter-on-quarter to 131 in the first quarter of 2019.
Eugene Lim, key executive officer at ERA Realty Network, noted that the drop is similar to the 0.2 percent decrease registered in the preceding quarter.
Ref: Property Report
