A total of 2,084 private homes were sold last month, marking the highest number of sales per month this year since April.
A large portion of these transactions came from only three relatively new projects – Spottiswoode Residences, Waterview and The Lakefront Residences. Together, these projects accounted for 1,071 units or 51.4 percent of all the units sold.
“Such a figure is a historical anomaly,” said Mr. Adam Tan, corporate communications manager at PropNex. “Typically, we see slower sales for the last quarter of the year, but we’ve seen increasingly higher sales volume for 4Q10 so far. Correspondingly, there was a jump in the percentage of units with a median sale price of over $1,000 psf, from 54.8 percent to 65.3 percent of all units sold. This increase is partly due to higher prices of launched projects.”
While the high sales volume in October was attributed to the launch of two new executive condominiums, Mr. Tan believes that the remarkably large number last month was due to the demand from those waiting on the sidelines after the announcement of cooling measures in August, who have now decided to enter the market, and the relatively reasonable prices psf of these projects.
Li Hiaw Ho, executive director at CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) Research, said, “Sale of new homes was brisk because of the high liquidity in the market as well as the strong location and product attributes of the new launches.”
“The best performer in November was The Lakefront Residences, with 437 units sold at the median price of $1,075 psf. Its popularity could be attributed to its being located within a stone’s throw from the Lakeside MRT station and the government’s plans to develop the Jurong East and Jurong Lake areas into a major regional centre and leisure destination.”
However, such high sales volume will not likely continue for the next three months, as the market settles down and property developers take a break over the Christmas season and Lunar New Year period.
So far, more that 610 units have been sold in December, said Mr. Tan, saying that “270 were from Privé, an executive condominium in Punggol. If the rest are sold in December, which would not be surprising given the over 1,000 applications for the project’s 680 units, we can expect to see about 1,200 units sold for the month of December 2010.”