The Housing and Development Board (HDB) and Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) released today their flash estimates for the Q1 2013 Resale Price Index (RPI) and private residential property price index respectively.
HDB’s RPI stands at 205.4 which reflects a 1.2 percent increase from Q4 2012. This is the lowest quarter-on-quarter growth since Q1 last year.
Mohamed Ismail, CEO of PropNex Realty, said: “The HDB resale prices are beginning to show signs of moderation as witnessed by the more than 50 percent drop since last quarter. This is largely contributed by the introduction of the January cooling measures as well as the Mortgage Servicing Ratio (MSR) which have impacted the purchasing power of home buyers. As such, I expect the pace of growth for HDB resale prices to be muted especially for larger flats.”
Meanwhile, the Q1 price index of private homes stands at 213.1, which is 1.1 points higher than the 212.0 in the previous quarter. The index grew by just 0.5 percent compared to the 1.8 percent hike seen in Q4.
According to Chia Siew Chuin, Director for Research & Advisory at Colliers International, the slower pace of growth “is the result of the latest market cooling measures imposed in January 2013. Prices remain at an all-time high after recovering 59.9 percent from the global financial crisis in Q2 2009”.
The slowdown was evident islandwide with non-landed private home prices dropping 0.4 percent in the Core Central Region (CCR), while there was zero growth in the Rest of Central Region (RCR).
On the other hand, prices in the Outside Central Region (OCR) increased by 1.7 percent in Q1, down significantly from the 3.8 percent rise previously.
Joseph Tan, CBRE’s Executive Director for Residential, said: “Prices in the Outside Central Region continued to register strong growth in Q1 2013 mainly because of the launch of a significant number of projects with good location attributes (near MRT stations). Nevertheless, price growth appears to have moderated, most likely because of the impact of the January 2013 property cooling measures beginning to filter through.”
Moving forward, house price movements will likely depend on the type of projects launched this quarter.
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor of PropertyGuru, wrote this story. To contact him about this or other stories email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
Related Stories:
Latest GLS sites to see keen interest
Govt releases 3 residential sites for sale