- How Much Money Is Needed To Invest In Rental Property?
- Should A Real Estate Investor Get An Agent’s License?
- 5 Big Factors That Affect The Costs Of Renovating Your Home
- SIBOR Hike – What You Can Do With Your Current Loan
- 6 Basic Don’ts Of Real Estate Negotiation Tactics
- Will New Condo Relaunches Trigger The Great Property Sale We Have All Been Waiting For?
- 10 Proximity Amenities That Add Value To Real Estate
- How To Get Personal Loans More Easily With Good Credit
Property Market Statistics Comparison For 2011 & 2012
[poll id=”2″]
The Property Price Index (PPI) rose by 2.8% for the year 2012 while the Rental Index rose by 2.1%. The story of the year has to be the number of uncompleted projects being launched by developers. New condominium launches increased by over 20% for 2012 while enjoying encouraging sales. This is highly attributed to good performance new launch sales in OCR.
The key property cooling measure was focused on financial leverage. This indicates that the government agencies view low interest rates and easy access to mortgages as a key driver of rising prices. The measures implemented in January 2013 further validates this point.
Prices and Rentals
Prices of private residential properties increased by 1.8% in 4th Quarter 2012, compared to the 0.6% increase in the previous quarter. For the year 2012 as a whole, prices of private residential properties increased by 2.8%, compared with the 5.9% increase in 2011.
Prices of non-landed properties in Core Central Region (CCR)1 increased by 0.7% in 4th Quarter 2012, compared to the increase of 0.1% in the previous quarter. Prices in Rest of Central Region (RCR) increased by 0.9%, compared to the 0.8% increase in the previous quarter. For Outside Central Region (OCR), prices increased by 3.8% in 4th Quarter 2012, compared to the increase of 1.0% in the previous quarter.
Rentals of private residential properties increased by 0.7% in 4th Quarter 2012, compared with 0.9% in the previous quarter. For the year 2012 as a whole, rentals of private residential properties increased by 2.1%, compared with the 3.8% increase in 2011.
Excerpts from URA website
Although the speed of price increases accelerated compared to 4th quarter 2011, overall price increase for the year 2012 was much lower compared to 2011. This shows that interventions by government agencies to slow down rising prices through property cooling measure are working at the national level. The immediate action via the January 2013 cooling measures in response to acceleration of 4th quarter 2012 growth compared to 4th quarter 2011 also indicates that the agencies are very closely monitoring the property market.
Launches and Take-up
A total of 3,408 uncompleted private residential units (excluding ECs) were launched for sale by developers in 4th Quarter 2012, compared with 5,052 units in 3rd Quarter. For the year 2012 as a whole, 21,478 uncompleted private residential units (excluding ECs) were launched, compared with the 17,710 units launched in 2011.
4,353 private residential units were sold by developers in 4th Quarter 2012, compared with 5,916 units in 3rd Quarter 2012. For the year 2012 as a whole, 22,197 private residential units were sold by developers, compared with 15,904 units in 2011.
1,991 new EC units were launched for sale in 4th Quarter 2012. Developers sold 1,682 EC units in 4th Quarter 2012, compared to 391 units sold in 3rd Quarter 2012.
Excerpts from URA website
The growing supply of new condominiums will likely calm down the demand. But rising prices for new launch uncompleted condominiums in spite of the upcoming supplies is a cause for concern. Prices are rising despite increasing closing costs and restrictions on mortgage loan to value eligibility. This defies economic fundamentals and theory.
Resales and Sub-sales
The volume of resale transactions decreased from 3,709 units in 3rd Quarter 2012 to 3,058 units in 4th Quarter 2012. For the year 2012 as a whole, there were a total number of 12,811 resale transactions, compared with the 14,046 resale transactions reported in 2011.
Sub-sales accounted for 6.6% of all sale transactions in 4th Quarter 2012, slightly higher than the 6.3% recorded in 3rd Quarter 2012.
Excerpts from URA website
The resale market recorded lesser transactions. This can be attributed to the high demand for uncompleted projects as more buyers turn to new properties instead of older ones.
Overall, statistics appear to suggest that prices are slowing down. The alarming exception is the performance of uncompleted new launch condominiums. They are being built like a well-oiled production line while prices are climbing like a squirrel up a tree. This is expected to cool off in the near future as huge supplies are coming online from both the private sector and HDB. But any prediction based on market data has so far proven to defy economic theory and fundamentals.
0 comments