Rental weakness persists for condos, HDB flats in October: SRX Property

THE residential leasing market remained on a soft patch in October, with rents and transaction volumes for both private homes and HDB flats still on the slide.

Flash estimates from SRX Property shows that rents of non-landed private residential units slipped 0.4 per cent in October from the preceding month, following a 0.3 per cent month-on-month drop in September.

The declines were seen in both the Core Central Region and Outside Central Region, where rentals dipped 0.8 per cent. City-fringe condos or those in the Rest of Central Region marked a 0.4 per cent month-on-month improvement in rents in October.

Compared with a year ago, rents of private condos in October were down 5.7 per cent.

Rental transactions for private condos also contracted by 2.7 per cent month on month to an estimated 3,448 units, but this was 9.4 per cent higher than in October 2014.

For HDB flats, rents slipped 0.5 per cent in October, steeper than the 0.1 per cent drop in September, SRX Property's flash estimates show. This would translate to a 3.3 per cent drop from a year ago.

Three and four-room HDB flats marked month-on-month declines of 0.5 per cent and 1.2 per cent in rents respectively, while five-room flats and executive flats posted rental increases of 0.1 per cent and 1.1 per cent respectively.

Rental transactions for HDB flats contracted 3 per cent month on month in October to an estimated 1,602 HDB flats. They were down 7.8 per cent from October 2014.

[Amendment note]: In the original version, we mentioned that rents in Outside Central Region fell 0.4% in October, according to SRX Property. It should be 0.8%.