A new index from the National University of Singapore (NUS) shows that prices of non-landed private homes outside the prime districts of Singapore are now growing at a faster rate than prices in the prime districts.
“Non-central” home prices surged 1.2 percent last month, taking the Q1 rise to 4.4 percent, according to flash estimates for March.
In contrast, prices of homes in the central region – postal districts 1-4 and 9-11 – dropped 0.07 percent last month. For the first quarter, prices increased to 1.7 percent.
NUS’s Singapore Residential Price Index also shows that the overall home prices increased 2.8 percent during the first three months and 0.3 percent last month.
This dragged the overall current value of the index just 0.1 percent below the November 2007 peak. Home prices in the central region are now 9.3 percent below that peak, while prices in non-central areas are 6.4 percent above the previous January 2008 peak.
The market values of a basket of completed properties are used to compute the NUS index. Uncompleted projects are excluded in the basket.
“The rate of price growth in the central area has slowed, but for the non-central region, we have not seen an obvious decline in the rate of growth yet,” said Lum Sau Kim, an associate professor who leads the group that compiles the index.
In 2009, price growth in the non-central areas was outpaced by that in the central region. Home prices grew 19.5 percent in non-central areas and 27.3 percent in the central region. The overall index climbed 22.2 percent.
According to several analysts, the moderation in the growth of prices – seen in both the official Urban Redevelopment Authority index and NUS index –– signifies that the implemented measures by the government to cool the property market have reined in runaway price increases.
Based on the official data released recently by URA, prices of non-landed properties increased 4.9 percent in Q1, down from 7.2 percent during the previous quarter. It also showed that for Q1, prices in the “core central region”, which roughly correlates to the central region classification used by the NUS index, increased 4.4 percent – faster than that in the “outside central region”, which rose 4.3 percent.
In addition, prices in the mid-level “rest of central region” surged 7.9 percent in Q1.