Home sales dive on dearth of launches

[SINGAPORE] Developers' private home sales shrank to 259 units (excluding executive condominiums, or ECs) in December 2013 - a big drop from 1,271 units in November and 1,410 units in December 2012.

Though the figure - the lowest since January 2009 (108 units) - was worse than market expectations, no panic buttons have been pressed.

The December drop was due largely to developers' strategy of holding back launches and gathering interest first, said agents.

In fact, they launched just 118 new private homes last month - the least since the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) first released monthly developer housing sales data in June 2007. In December 2012, 1,011 units were launched.

"Having sprinted for the first half of the year, developers took a breather in December to allow the dust of the TDSR (Total Debt Servicing Ratio) framework to settle, and took the opportunity to gear up for the new year," said CBRE Research head…