Prices of private non-landed homes jump 13.4% in Q4

Prices of private non-landed homes jump 13.4% in Q4
Posted: 11 January 2013 1404 hrs
    
SINGAPORE: Resale prices of private non-landed homes jumped 13.4 per cent on-year in the fourth quarter last year, according to flash estimates put out by the Singapore Real Estate Exchange (SRX).

SRX compiles data from 11 top property agencies in Singapore.

It said non-landed private resale home prices continued its uptrend to hit S$1,233 per square foot in the fourth quarter (Q4), compared to S$1,157 per square foot in the third quarter (Q3) in 2012.

Lee Sze Teck, senior research manager at DWG, said: "One possible reason is that there are fewer launches in November and December. So some of the buyers have gone over to the resale market."

Resale units in the mass market segment led the gain with a 4.8 per cent increase over Q3, while those in the city fringes saw prices climb 3.6 per cent.

But it was the core central region which saw a higher-than-expected growth of 4.6 per cent in Q4.

SRX said this was due to the city area's strong performance in December.

Average private resale home prices in the city area surged 8.8 per cent to S$1,899 per square foot in December, over November's average of S$1,746.

SRX said the strong growth is partly attributed to a possible record breaking price paid by Hong Kong's Swire Properties for all 12 units in the en bloc sale of Hampton Court located at the corner of Draycott Park and Draycott Drive

Meanwhile, resale transaction volume of non-landed private homes showed a seasonal drop of 5.5 per cent in Q4 compared with Q3.

But transaction volumes in the city area bucked the trend by reporting a 7.3 per cent increase. Volumes in city fringes and mass market segments fell by 11 per cent and 4.6 per cent respectively.

For the full year, 12,500 units were transacted in the private resale non-landed market - a 7 per cent drop compared to 2011.

SRX said this can be attributed mainly to the weak performance in the first half of the year, which saw a 27.3 per cent plunge in transaction volumes after the additional buyer's stamp duty was introduced.

But the trend was reversed in the second half of the year with a 20.1 per cent jump in the number of units transacted compared to a year ago.

On the HDB resale market, SRX said resale cash-over-valuation (COV) dropped 5.7 per cent to S$33,000 in December, compared to November's median COV of S$35,000 which is a record high for 2012.

For the fourth quarter, overall median cash-over-valuation rose to S$34,000 - up S$4,000 from Q3.

This helped to push overall HDB median resale price to a new historical high of S$455,000 - a 1.1 per cent increase from Q3's S$450,000.

- CNA/ck/ms

- wong chee tat :)