Private home sales in June drop 25% on-month

SINGAPORE: Sales of private homes fell 25 per cent in June from a month earlier, according to data released on Friday by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA).

A total of 1,182 private residential units were sold last month, down from 1,575 units in May. 

The month-on-month dip came about despite an increase in launches in June. A total of 1,614 units were launched in June, up from 1,215 in May.

Analysts said the lower transaction volumes were due to seasonal June holidays effect. The government's plans to increase public housing and the weak global economy also dented buying sentiment.

Private homes in the Outside Central Region (OCR) accounted for 833 of the units sold in June, compared with 227 units in the Rest of Central Region (RCR) and 122 units in the Core Central Region (CCR).

Including Executive Condominiums (ECs), the total sales in June would have been higher, at 1,394 units. 

The most expensive property sold in June was Le Nouvel Ardmore at Ardmore Park, where a unit was sold at a median price of S$4,362 per square foot.

Chalking up the best sales was Woodhaven at Woodgrove Avenue, which sold 155 units at a median price of S$981 per square foot. 

The best selling EC was Belysa at Pasir Ris Drive 1, which sold 153 units at a median price of S$700 per square foot.

On a six-month basis, private home sales were up in the first half of 2011 compared to the previous six months.

Analysts said this was due to more units being launched in the first six months of this year.

9,086 units were launched in the first half of 2011 compared to 8,143 units in the second half of 2010.

Colliers International's director for research & advisory, Chia Siew Chuin, said: "If you're looking at the first half of this year, developers' sales figure was about close to 8,200 units. Compared to the second half of last year - it's close to 7,900 units - this was a slight increase of about 3.5 per cent. This is despite the fact that there were cooling measures imposed."

Private home prices have also largely held steady, according to latest data from the URA.

Chia Siew Chuin said: "We have also seen that prices are moderating for about seven consecutive quarters. So you can see that there is some resistance in buyers' responses to continued price hikes. In view of the possible dampening effects on buying demand, we would see that prices would probably moderate further or hold stable.

Overall, analysts said they expect home prices to increase about 8 per cent this year.

They said that slowing sales volumes would not put too much downward pressure on prices. This is because developers can always hold back launches if they feel that target sales prices are too low.

Analysts also said they expect private home sales to continue to moderate in the second half of the year, but still think full-year sales would be healthy.

Credo Real Estate's head of residential services, Liang Thow Ming, said: "The sales figure, without ECs, was at 1,200 and with ECs, at 1,400. If you try to extrapolate and annualise this over a full year, we're still hitting in excess of 14,000 to 15,000 units for this year."

Analysts said most buyers are adopting a wait-and-see attitude before they make their purchases. They are watching for new announcements on housing policy as well as developments in the uncertain global economy.

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