Rents for non-landed private homes dip in July: SRX Property

RENTS for non-landed private homes in Singapore remained on a slide in July, marking a 0.4 per cent decline from a month ago and a 4.8 per cent fall from a year ago.

The main drag came from the suburban region or the Outside Central Region (OCR), where rents slipped 1.1 per cent month on month, followed by a 0.7 per cent decline in the Core Central Region (CCR).

Meanwhile, rents in the city fringe or Rest of Central Region (RCR) inched up 0.8 per cent during the month of July.

From the peak of January 2013, rents are down 16.9 per cent, based on SRX Property's rental index.

SRX Property revised June's flash estimate for rentals in non-landed homes from no change to a 0.1 per cent decrease.

Interestingly, rents in HDB (Housing & Development Board) flats edged up 0.5 per cent in July from June, after five straight months of decline as the uptick in rents for smaller HDB flat types outweighed the declines in larger flats.

HDB flat rents were 3.8 per cent lower in July than a year ago and 9.6 per cent below the peak in August 2013, according to SRX Property's estimates.

Rental volumes for non-landed private homes and HDB flats fell 5 per cent and 6.1 per cent respectively to the current estimates of 4,100 private non-landed units and 1,653 HDB flats.

Such flash report on rentals by SRX Property typically captures close to 80 per cent of the month's transactions on average at the time of the report's publication.

Volume estimates for transactions not yet captured are based on the estate agencies' historical submission pattern and timeline, taking into account seasonal periods during the year. The algorithm also filters out room rentals to reflect only full flat rentals. But these volume estimates are subsequently revised as more actual transactions are recorded.