Although market sentiment for the real estate sector remained weak, the sentiment index improved slightly from 3.8 in Q1 2015 to 3.9 in Q2 2015, revealed the latest survey by the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the Real Estate Developers’ Association of Singapore (REDAS).
A score of more than five indicates improving market conditions, while a score of less than five indicates deteriorating conditions.
The worst performing real estate sectors were the prime retail and residential sectors, while the best performing was the business park/hi-tech space sector, reported Channel NewsAsia.
Meanwhile, the Future Sentiment Index – which measures market sentiment for the next six months – climbed from 3.7 percent during the previous quarter to 4.0.
The NUS-REDAS survey also showed that property developers are unlikely to hold back on residential launches, with nearly 75 percent of developers expecting new launches to moderately increase and/or remain at the same level over the next six months.
Moreover, 52.4 percent of the developers polled expect residential property prices to moderately decline in the next six months.
Over 73 percent expect the rising inflation, interest rates and the slowdown in the global economy to adversely affect sentiment in the real estate market in the next six months. Notably, only 26.6 percent pointed to the cooling measures by the government as a potential risk that could negatively affect market sentiment.
Respondents of the quarterly survey are senior executives of REDAS member firms, said NUS and REDAS in a joint statement.
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Singapore Editor at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this or other stories email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
