Introduction
The sales activities in the private residential property primary market slowed significantly last month as the number of private housing units released by real estate developers decreased sharply, based on the data released by the government today. As a result, primary market property sales also dropped significantly.
Private housing market in June
A key reason for the lower sales in June was due to the lack of major residential project launches last month. Three major residential developments were launched within 30 days after the implementation of the latest round of property curbs at the end of April 2023. The three residential launches were Blossoms by the Park, The Continuum and The Reserve Residences.
By contrast, only a small apartment project, named Lavender Residence, was launched in June 2023. About half of the 17-unit development located at Lavender Street was sold at the median price of $1,972 psf, which appears rather affordable in the current market as the median prices of the recent major launches are usually above $2,050 psf.
Table 1: Residential projects launched after the April 2023 cooling measures
Launch date | Residential Project | Location | District | Tenure | No. of units | Avg Launch Price $psf |
Apr 23 | Blossoms by the Park | Slim Barracks Rise | 5 | 99-year LH | 275 | $2,423 |
May 23 | The Continuum | Thiam Siew Avenue | 15 | Freehold | 816 | $2,732 |
May 23 | The Reserve Residences | Jalan Anak Bukit | 21 | 99-year LH | 732 | $2,460 |
Jul 23 | The Myst | Upper Bukit Timah Road | 23 | 99-year LH | 408 | $2,057 |
Jul 23 | Lentor Hills Residences | Lentor Hills Drive | 26 | 99-year LH | 598 | $2,080 |
Jul 23 | Pinetree Hill | Pine Grove | 21 | 99-year LH | 520 | $2,460 |
Jul 23 | Grand Dunman | Dunman Road | 15 | 99-year LH | 1,008 | $2,500 |
Property developers only released a total of 31 units in the entire residential primary market in June. This is the smallest monthly number of private housing units released since URA started releasing such monthly figures in 2007.
Outlook
There are three main points for the outlook on the private housing market.
First, the dip in primary market sales in June is just the calm before the storm. There is a deluge of residential launches in July. In the first half of July, four major condominium projects with a total of 2,534 units were launched for sale.
A total of 278 private housing units and 19 Executive Condominium units were sold by developers last month. Although this is the smallest monthly number of private housing units sold by developers so far this year, their sales will more than quadruple in July 2023.
Altogether, the four new residential launches in July sold about 44% of the combined number of units in their respective first weekend of the launches. Coupled with the sales from the other residential projects, the primary market sales for July will surge to above 1,400 units.
Second, in the coming months, the monthly primary market property sales could be volatile as they would be highly dependent on whether there are any new launches in that month. Developers may pause their launches in August, partly due to the Hungry Ghost Month and partly to let the market absorb the stock of newly released units.
However, property sales will pick up again in September and October before the year-end lull period sets in.
Third, some of the recent launches are reporting that close to 98% to 99% of the housing units were bought by locals (namely Singaporeans and permanent residents) because the punitive 60% Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty levied on foreign buyers have almost killed off the foreign homebuying demand.
The Singapore population is not growing at a rapid pace. Hence, the pool of potential buyers of uncompleted residential properties is limited. Furthermore, homebuyer will become increasingly selective as they will have ample choices of new residential developments from which to choose.
There are ten more residential projects with a total of 2,350 units that could potentially be launched for the rest of this year. As there is a substantial supply of new launches and demand is limited, it will become increasingly challenging for the subsequent launches to achieve sales of above 40% of the total number of units in each development in their first weekend of launch.
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