Analysts believe that overall private residential resale prices are likely to continue to fall in the near future, mainly due to a possible slowdown in market demand as the year draws to a close and the real estate off-season, plus mortgage rates will remain high, although it is too early to tell whether the fall in resale prices will form a trend.
According to the latest estimates released by the National University of Singapore's (NUS) Real Estate and Urban Research Institute on Thursday (1 December), the overall resale price of private homes on the NUS SRPI fell 0.7 per cent to 172.5 in October from a year earlier, after rising continuously from 152.3 in October 2020 to a flat 165.6 in February this year.
The rate of increase in September was revised upwards from the original estimate of 0.5% to 0.6% this year after adjustments.
The government implemented the latest round of property cooling measures on 30 September, reducing the amount of borrowing for home buyers and requiring private home owners to wait 15 months after selling their homes before they can buy resale HDB flats.
In an interview with the Lianhe Zaobao, ERA's Head of Industrial Research and Consulting, Mr Mak Chun Wing, pointed out that the fall in private resale prices in October was believed to be an immediate response to the cooling measures.
Resale prices are likely to continue to fall as November and December are the slow months for the property market.
Private resale prices fell across all districts in October, with the Central District registering the largest fall of 0.8% year-on-year, and non-Central District (excluding small flats) and small flats also down by 0.6%.
Overall private resale prices rose by 5.7% in October compared to the same month last year. This compares with a 4.7% increase since the start of the year.
The three-month SGD overnight rate (SORA) linked to mortgages shot up from near zero at the start of the year to 2.9243 by the end of November, with bank fixed rate mortgage packages above the 4% level.
According to Dr Lee Nai Kiat, Head of Property Intelligence at PropertyGuru, the fall in private resale prices in October was due to a combination of factors, including an uncertain macroeconomic outlook, cooling measures and rising mortgage rates, however, "it is too early to say that the fall in October represents the start of a change in trend.
He noted, however, that demand may slow in the fourth quarter of the year as more people travel abroad due to the reopening of the border, and sellers seeking emergency sales may become more flexible.
