Singapore Heats Up as May Home Sales More Than Double Previous Month’s Tally

Developers sold 1,356 new private homes in Singapore during May, a 106 percent rise from April’s 660 units and the highest monthly figure since last November’s 1,547, according to government data released Wednesday.

The May tally of new home sales was up 51.5 percent from the year-earlier count of 895 units sold, with the surge driven by two project launches, Piccadilly Grand near Little India and Liv @ MB in Mountbatten, where sales totalled 318 and 236 units, respectively.

The city-fringe Rest of Central Region, which encompasses both projects, dominated sales in May with a total of 893 new homes sold, accounting for 66 percent of overall sales during the month, said local agency PropNex Realty.

“Sales came roaring back in May after a relatively slower performance in the earlier part of the year,” said PropNex head of research Wong Siew Ying. “The rebound in new home sales last month was not unexpected as two RCR launches (Piccadilly Grand and Liv @ MB) were popular with buyers — contributing to about 41 percent of May’s transactions.”

Logan Project Selling

May sales in the Outside Central Region totalled 247 units, led by 40 at Florence Residences in the Hougang area. That project came about in 2017 when China’s Logan Property bought up the former Florence Regency for S$629 million ($462 million) to redevelop the complex into more than 1,400 new homes.

The Core Central Region accounted for 216 new units sold in May, with City Developments Ltd’s Haus on Handy near Dhoby Ghaut MRT station transacting 24 units to become the only CCR project in the citywide top 10 for the month.

In terms of price, CDL and CapitaLand’s CanningHill Piers took the crown in May with a median S$2,814 per square foot paid for homes at the Clarke Quay project, which had sold 77 percent of its 696 units at last November’s launch weekend.

Singaporeans made up 83.3 percent of May’s overall new home sales and 73.5 percent of CCR sales (up from 66.1 percent in April), according to a PropNex analysis, as cooling measures enacted last December continued to make city-state homes less attractive to foreign buyers.

Examples of foreign homebuyer interest in May included the purchase of 20 units at CanningHill Piers for more than S$85 million by a Chinese national, said Leonard Tay, head of research at Knight Frank Singapore.

Risk of Inflation, Rate Hikes

PropNex’s Wong said the agency expects Singapore’s new home sales to continue to gain traction, with transactions likely to surge during months in which new projects are put on the market.

“Some of the upcoming launches over the next few months include The Arden in Phoenix Road, AMO Residence in Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1, Lentor Modern in Lentor Central and Sceneca Residence in Tanah Merah Kechil Link,” she said. “However, we remain watchful of potential downside risks for property sales amid rising inflation, further interest rate hikes, and the pessimism over global growth.”

CBRE expects full-year new home sales to trend down from 2021’s 13,000-plus units to a normalised 9,000-10,000 units, said Tricia Song, the consultancy’s head of research for Southeast Asia.

Knight Frank’s Tay gave an even less optimistic forecast, predicting volume to reach 8,000-9,000 units for the whole of 2022 as buyers look to commit before rate hikes become too prohibitive later in the year.