Singapore private home prices down 0.5% in Q4 2015: URA

THE pace of decline in private residential prices showed signs of moderation in the fourth quarter of last year, with the Urban Redevelopment Authority's (URA) flash price index for private residential prices slipping a smaller 0.5 per cent after a 1.3 per cent decline in the preceding quarter.

This brings the full-year change to 3.7 per cent in 2015, following a 4 per cent drop in 2014.

For non-landed private homes, prices dipped 0.4 per cent in Core Central Region (CCR) in the fourth quarter, compared to a 1.2 per cent fall in the third quarter. Prices in Rest of Central Region (RCR) and Outside Central Region remained unchanged, following a 1.6 per cent fall in each segment in the previous quarter.

For the full year, the biggest price drop of 3.9 per cent took place in RCR, followed by OCR's 3.7 per cent drop and CCR's 2.6 per cent fall.

Prices of landed properties fell 2.1 per cent in the fourth quarter, compared to the 0.4 per cent decline in the previous quarter. This brings their full-year fall to 4.4 per cent.

The flash estimates are compiled based on transaction prices given in contracts submitted for stamp duty payment and survey data on new units sold by developers during the first 10 weeks of the quarter.

The statistics will be updated four weeks later when the URA releases the full real estate statistics for the fourth quarter, which captures more data from the stamp duty records and the take-up of new projects.