PRIVATE residential property prices inched up 0.2 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2022 after growing 3.8 per cent in the third quarter, finishing the year with a rise of 8.4 per cent, compared to the 10.6 per cent increase in 2021. Generally, analysts are expecting a slower price growth this year.

Knight Frank’s head of research, Leonard Tay, said that 2022’s 8.4 per cent price rise is “beyond expectation at the beginning of the year, when the December 2021 cooling measures set a conservative cloud on projections”.

But with each subsequent new project, a significant number of units sold out within 48 hours of launch and prices continued to climb. These projects – mainly in the rest of central region (RCR) and outside central region (OCR) – stirred so much homebuyer interest that the combination of recessionary pressures, inflation, unrelenting interest rates hikes and cooling measures were not able to rein in demand and the consequent price increases between Q2 and Q3 2022, he noted.