Singapore private home sales tumble 58% to 277 units in April over March: URA

DEVELOPERS in Singapore sold 277 new private homes in April, a dive of 58 per cent from 660 in March, as buyers stayed home during the "circuit breaker", confirming a Business Times report on Thursday.

A total of 640 units were launched in April. The last time transactions fell below the number of units launched was in September.

The 277 sales was 62.4 per cent lower over April 2019's 737 units, data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) showed on Friday.

With the "circuit breaker" extended till June 1, sales in May are expected to do poorly too.

Including executive condominiums or ECs, which are a private-public hybrid, there were 293 new homes sold in April.

April saw a higher number of expensive homes sold. Transactions in the core central region (CCR) were 36.8 per cent versus 6.8 per cent in March. CCR sales came to 102 units, more than double the 45 units in March. Demand was from Kopar at Newton and The M.

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Kopar at Newton formed the majority of the new home sales in CCR. "The stellar sales for Kopar could be attributed to their good location and attractive pricing where the median price is about S$2,241 per sq foot in April 2020, " said Christine Sun, OrangeTee & Tie, head of research and consultancy.

"It is encouraging to see sales still going strong for luxury homes. This may indicate that despite the pandemic, Singapore remains to be an attractive investment destination to wealthy investors," said Ms Sun.

Consultants are projecting 2020 sales to slump as much as half of the 9,912 units sold in 2019.