Prices of completed private homes across Singapore stayed flat in December.
Island-wide prices of completed private homes stayed flat in December 2016 on a monthly basis, compared to a 0.8 percent drop in November, flash estimates of the NUS Singapore Residential Price Index (SRPI) showed.
Excluding small units, prices of non-landed units in the central region decreased by 0.6 percent, following a 0.9 percent decline in the preceding month. On the other hand, prices in the non-central region rose by 0.4 percent, a reversal of the 0.7 percent fall previously, based on data as of 27 January.
The central region sub-basket consists of properties located in districts 1 to 4 and 9 to 11, while units in the other districts fall under the non-central region sub-basket.
Meanwhile, small units measuring 506 sq ft or below suffered a marginal price drop of 0.1 percent last December, versus the 0.5 percent slide in November.
Ong Kah Seng, Director at R’ST Research, told the Straits Times that the generally weaker resale prices in December was due to the holiday lull and buyers anticipating lower prices for upcoming developments to be launched this year.
Another factor for the small changes in prices of private homes built in 2016, he added, is that many units completed over the past few years consisted of shoebox flats, which have higher psf prices despite their small size.
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this or other stories, email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
