Sales of new private homes in Singapore, including executive condominiums (ECs), rose marginally month-on-month to 535 units. In June a total of 531 units were sold according to data published by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA).
Excluding ECs, the number of transacted units last month was 484 units.
The best-selling project by the number of units sold in July was City Gate at Beach Road (pictured), which sold 89 units at a median average price of $1,809 psf.
The most expensive property sold in July based on median psf pricing came from a single unit at Clermont Residence in Tanjong Pagar, which transacted at $3,244 psf.
The same month last year produced a total of 594 transacted private homes, including ECs.
A total of 5,365 new private homes, including ECs, have been sold during the first seven months of the year, according to URA data. The first seven months of last year saw a total of 12,562 units transacted according to the same data source – a decline of more than 57 percent year-on-year to date.
Last month Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam expressed his opinion that there will not be a property market crash although he added that a further correction would not be unexpected.
In recent months various government spokespeople have said it’s too early to relax any of the cooling measures that it began to implement in 2009 to control the red-hot real estate market here.
According to URA, prices as well as the number of units sold during the month are based on the Option to Purchase (OTP) issued by developers to buyers and reported to URA.
An OTP is a right or option given by the vendor to an intending purchaser to buy the property at a specified price within a specified period of time – the validity period of the option. The intending purchaser must pay a booking fee of between 5 – 10 percent of the agreed price for this right or option. The purchaser has to exercise the OTP within its validity period if he decides to buy the property.
Andrew Batt, International Group Editor of PropertyGuru Group, wrote this story. To contact him about this or other stories email andrew@propertyguru.com.sg
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