Fewer HDB units sold in March despite, resale prices rise 0.3%
Seven out of nine flat transactions valued at more than a million dollars were lodged in Toa Payoh, and seven of them were located at Toa Payoh Crest. This project has just recently met its five-year occupancy minimum period.
Toa Payoh Crest offers a good location and is close to MRT Stations, Schools and Amenities. There will be more of these transactions in the coming month.
The proportion of flats that have a lease remaining longer than 90 years in March was 26.8%, which is slightly more than the February figure of 26.4%.
The fact that newer homes tend to be more expensive could have contributed to the increase in resale values.
The number will continue to rise in April. Data from April 8 shows that 16 resale condos were sold in April for at least one million dollars each.
Prices of Housing Board’s resale units increased for a sixth consecutive month during March. Analysts attribute this to the growing demand for large flats as well as the rising number of transactions for flats worth over $1 million.
Flash data from Singapore Real Estate Exchange SRX and 99.co, two real estate portals, showed on Monday, April 8, that prices increased by 0.3 percent in March.
Prices increased 6.2 percent year on year.
In spite of the slower price increase, the growth rate overall over the past six-month period has accelerated.
HDB resale rates rose by 3.8 % between September and March 2024. That was higher than 2.3 % increase over the previous six month period, March to September.
Sales may have slowed down due to a sharper increase in price over the past six-month period.
Resale flats sold less in March,. Transactions fell by 3.3 percent to an estimate 2,063 units.
Resale volume is 9.8 per cent less than March 2023.
A certain amount of demand may have shifted from the HDB’s sales activity in February. More than 4,100 Build to Order flats and 1,550 Sale of Balance Flats had been offered.
Sixty-one apartments sold for at least one million dollars in March, up from fifty in February.
One hundred and twenty-four HDB flats were sold in March. Twenty-four were four-room apartments, sixteen were executive flats and two were multigenerational units.
Nine were in non-mature areas such as Bukit Panjang (Yishun), Jurong East, and Hougang.
This is a greater proportion than the 2.3% recorded in February.
The most costly resale was a 5-room, 1,202 square foot unit between the nineteenth and twenty-first storeys of Block 9A Boon Tiong Road at Tiong Bahru. That flat sold for approximately $1.45 million.
A multi-generation flat measuring 1,765 sq ft in Yishun Avenue 4 fetched a top price of $1.2m in March.
Six executive apartments in Hougang have been sold for at minimum $1 million each. It is the largest number of million dollar transactions to occur in this non-mature city in a single month.
Demand for larger flats and those with more rooms is higher, a result of the 15-month wait period that home owners must complete after selling and entering the HDB Resale Market.
The waitout period is one of the temporary measures that were implemented in September 2020 for cooling down the resale industry.
Comparing February to January, prices for five-room apartment increased the most by 1 per cent. Three-room apartment prices decreased by only 0.1 percent, while executive units dropped 0.5 per cent.
