Private home prices up by 3.4% in Q2

Prices of both landed homes and private condos rose.

The prices of private homes jumped 3.4% in Q2 compared with the 3.9% increase in Q1, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) revealed.

According to flash data, the prices of landed properties grew by 4.1% whilst those of private condos grew by 3.2%. Prices of private condos in the Core Central Region (CCR), Rest of Central Region (RCR), Outside Central Region (OCR) all grew by 0.9%, 5.6%, and 3% respectively.

Meanwhile, URA’s rentals index inched up by 1% as rentals of landed properties jumped by 3.6% whilst those of private condos grew by 0.6%. Rentals in the CCR, RCR, and OCR all grew by 0.8%, 0.4%, and 0.8% respectively.

About 2,437 units, excluding executive condominiums (EC), were launched by developers during the quarter, 165% greater than the launches in Q1. Developer sales also grew by almost half at 49.65% to 2,366 units compared to 1,581 units last quarter.

There were 682 units launched for sale, whilst 762 were sold within the quarter. In comparison, developers did not launch any EC units and sold 261 EC units in the previous quarter.

Resale transactions accounted for 65.4% of all sales in Q2, slightly lower than 68.8% in the previous quarter. There 4,700 of such transactions, higher by 28.21% than 3,666 units in Q1. There were also 120 subsales, which accounted for 1.7% of all sales transactions.

URA added that there was a total supply of 45,003 uncompleted private residential units (excluding ECs) in the pipeline with planning approvals, 11.59% higher than the 40,330 units in the previous quarter. Of this number, 26,943 units remained unsold.

After adding the supply of 2,518 EC units in the pipeline, there were 47,521 units in the pipeline with planning approvals. Of the EC units in the pipeline, 18 units remained unsold.

In total, 26,961 units with planning approvals (including ECs) remained unsold, up from 24,193 units in the previous quarter.

Based on the expected completion dates reported by developers, 7,130 units (including ECs) will be completed in the second half of 2018. Another 9,510 units (including ECs) will be completed in 2019.

“The redevelopment of the large number of private residential developments sold en-bloc since 2016 will add a significant number of new housing units to the supply pipeline,” URA said.

It added that there is a potential supply of 19,500 units (including ECs) from Government Land Sales (GLS) sites (8,400 units) and awarded en bloc sale sites that have not been granted planning approval yet (11,100 units).

The stock of completed private residential units (excluding ECs) increased by 1,152 units. The stock of occupied private residential units (excluding ECs) increased by 1,994 units.

As a result, the vacancy rate of completed private residential units (excluding ECs) dropped to 7.1%, compared with 7.4% in the previous quarter. Vacancy rates of completed private residential properties in CCR, RCR and OCR were 10.9%, 7.7% and 5.0% respectively, compared with the 11.6%, 8.3% and 4.9% in the previous quarter.