New Singapore private home sales in September rise for 5th straight month

DEVELOPERS in Singapore sold 1,329 new private homes in September, 5.8 per cent more than the 1,256 units in August.

It is the highest sales volume notched since July 2018's 1,724, and marks the fifth consecutive month of increase in monthly sales since the "circuit breaker" in April 2020. The figure is also 4.6 per cent higher than the 1,270 units sold in September 2019.

The latest sales mean 3,665 units were sold in Q3, more than double Q2's 1,762, and 2.6 per cent higher than the 3,572 taken up in Q3 2019.

The figures - which were released by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) on Thursday based on its survey of licensed housing developers - exclude executive condominium (EC) units, which are a public-private housing hybrid. Including ECs, developers moved 1,385 units in September, up from 1,309 units in August.

Last month, 1,340 units were released, of which 25 were in the Core Central Region (CCR), 1,187 in Rest of Central Region (RCR), and 128 were Outside Central Region (OCR).

The highest number of transactions was in the RCR with 859 units, followed by OCR (386) and CCR (84).

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The strong sales achieved were due to the 389 units traded at The Penrose which almost single-handedly pushed September to become the highest monthly sales in 2020 and since July 2018, said Lee Sze Teck, Huttons Asia director (research).

In July 2018, there was the introduction of cooling measures, and frenzied buying on the day before the measures took effect pushed sales to a record high, he said.

In the first nine months of 2020, developers sold an estimated 7,532 units, which is 0.8 per cent more than the same period in 2019.

"While Singapore is headed for its biggest recession on record, the contraction is not broad-based and in part due to the two-month 'circuit breaker'," Mr Lee noted.

The manufacturing and export sectors have shown early signs of recovery since June, and properties are one of the investment assets that will benefit from economic recovery.

"Strong monthly sales and price recovery in the property market since Q2 2020 probably also gave buyers confidence to enter the market," said Mr Lee.