Private non-landed housing prices up 0.7% m-o-m in September: NUS SRPI flash estimate

The National University of Singapore’s Institute of Real Estate and Urban Studies (IREUS) released the Flash estimates for the overall Singapore Residential Price Index (SRPI) on Oct 30 which indicate an increase of 0.7% m-o-m in prices of resale private non-landed residential properties in Singapore. This comes as overall consumer prices in Singapore rose 0.5% m-o-m in September, according to the Singapore Consumer Price Index.

The SRPI tracks and measures the price movements of a basket of 759 non-landed private residential projects completed between October 2003 and September 2021. For the sub-index for small units, the figure was 1.2%. The sub-index for the Central Region (excluding small units) was 0.8% m-o-m, and the sub-index for the non-Central Region (excluding small units) was 0.6%.

Moving on, the overall SRPI for August was adjusted to reflect an increase of 1%, up from its flash estimate of 0.7%. The sub-index for the Central Region (excluding small units) for August was 0.9%, marginally higher than the flash estimate of 0.8%. For the non-Central Region (excluding small units), the sub-index was adjusted to reflect a 1% increase, higher than the 0.7% increase indicated in the flash estimates.

Senior director of data analytics at Huttons Asia, Lee Sze Teck, believes that the slower price growth in the resale condo market is possibly due to the high interest rates which has capped sellers’ gains. Buyers are also hesitant to pay a higher price due to the same.

IREUS’ report for the September SRPI also included data on the buyer profiles in the resale condo market. In the last 12 months, Singaporeans accounted for about 74.6% of the purchases, followed by Singapore permanent residents at about 21.4%, and foreigners at 3.7%.

In terms of volume, the flash data showed that the non-landed private residential sales fell 28% m-o-m in September. This is in comparison to a growth of 2.5% m-o-m in August.

Furthermore, compared with the peak in March, the number of non-landed private homes purchased by Singaporeans, Singapore permanent residents and foreigners in the resale market fell by 37.4%, 46.2% and 86.7% respectively in September. The number of condo units purchased by foreigners on the resale market in September was just eight units, 56% down from the 18 units in the month before.

Holland Drive Condo, the residential development of a mere minutes’ walk away from Henry Park Primary School, is the ideal place for families. The property is near to many other amenities such as Cold Storage for grocery shopping, specialist cafes, and a range of eateries.

Lee Sze Teck expects the high interest rate environment and ongoing economic uncertainties to continue driving the cautious sentiments in the market, which will likely have an effect on the resale condo market for the rest of the year. “Prices are estimated to increase by at most 8% in 2023,” he adds.