The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) monthly sales volume for private residential units excluding executive condominiums (ECs) dropped 11 percent month-on-month to 1,189 units in January.
New projects launched last month generally saw weaker take-up of below 50 percent, except Spottiswoode 18 and Loft @ Holland, where more than 80 percent of the units released were sold, said Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL).
The Rest of Central Region (RCR) registered a 42 percent month-on-month increase, driven by good take-up of units at some large projects launched this month, as well as absorption of unsold units launched in the previous months.
However, the Core Central Region (CCR) and Outside Central Region (OCR) saw declines of 55 percent and two percent respectively. The decline in CCR was attributed to a shortage of large launches of new projects, while the drop in OCR was due to muted take-up despite the launch of some large projects.
Dr. Chua Yang Liang, Head of Research South East Asia, said, “As with all previous interventions, the market often responds correspondingly to any policy, at least over the first few weeks. This decline in sales volume of 11 percent is not, therefore, beyond expectations, although the full impact of this recent policy cannot be determined by the January number as yet. We need to monitor the market and observe the February results before we can examine the 30 day pre-post policy effect and draw some conclusions on the effectiveness of the policy. As far as further measures are concerned, we think the risk is quite low at this moment.”
Meanwhile, Li Hiaw Ho, Executive Director at CBRE Research, commented, “The performance of the residential market in January shows that there is genuine demand by buyers who are less affected by the latest property measures. With more upgrader-type (of) projects expected to be released for the rest of February and March, such as My Manhattan, H2O Residences, Hedges and Wing Tai’s project at Petir Road, we expect demand to be comparable to January’s level and home prices to remain reasonably stable.”