Singapore New Private Home Sales Decline In December

Although developers released considerably fewer private residential units for sale in December 2021, all 3 market segments in Singapore recorded strong overall take-up rates of more than 100 per cent, said Edmund Tie head of research and consulting Lam Chern Woon. He highlighted that the outside central region (OCR) posted 224 new sales last month even with no new units launched, while the take-up rate - measuring new sales against launches - reached 123 per cent in the core central region (CCR) and 107 per cent in the rest of central region (RCR). “Units from previously launched projects continued to be soaked up by homebuyers, while developers are taking a cautious approach to launches in view of the newly introduced cooling measures,” Lam added. Nicholas Mak, head of research and consultancy at ERA, noted that the smaller month-on-month drop in sales in December, as compared to the decrease in launches, suggests “there was underlying buying demand in the property market”. He described the launch and sales activity in the first half of December as “reasonably active”, before it slowed down considerably in the wake of the fresh cooling measures. That being said, OrangeTee & Tie senior vice-president of research and analytics Christine Sun flagged that last month’s sales may not reflect the full impact of the new cooling measures, as a number of deals were closed before the curbs were introduced on Dec 16. Based on URA Realis caveat data, about 60 per cent of the transactions of new homes, including executive condominiums (ECs), were concluded in the first half of the month, she added.