A five-room resale flat at Pinnacle@Duxton was sold for a whopping S$1,388,888.88 last March. According to Christine Sun, Senior Vice President of Research and Analytics at OrangeTee & Tie, the transaction marks a new record for an HDB resale flat, smashing the previous record of S$1.36 million for a DBSS flat in Bishan.
Spanning 1,152 sq ft, the price psf for the record-breaking flat is around S$1,205. According to our Researcher database, the flat also holds the record for being the highest price psf for an HDB flat.
The record-breaking deal comes after last October’s announcement about the Prime Location Public Housing (PLH) model and last December’s cooling measures announcement.
Under the PLH model, new flats launched in prime locations are subjected to various restrictions such as a 10-year Minimum Occupation Period (MOP), a subsidy clawback and an income ceiling for resale buyers, to curb the lottery effect.
As for the new cooling measures pertaining to public housing, the loan-to-value (LTV) ratio was lowered to 85% for those taking HDB loans.
Sun noted that 82 flats were sold for at least a million dollars last quarter. This was almost on par with the 85 transactions recorded in Q4 2021.
“Of the million-dollar transactions, more flats breached the S$1.3 million mark and could soon be breaking the S$1.4 million level.”
Slower price increase in HDB resale flats
Despite the record-breaking sale, according to HDB’s flash estimate for Q1 2022, resale prices increased at a slower pace of 2.3% in the last quarter, compared to the 3.4% increase in Q4 2021.
Slower price increase in private properties
Likewise, given the new round of cooling measures, there has been a slower price increase for private properties. According to URA’s flash estimate for the last quarter, prices increased by 0.4% in Q1 2022, as opposed to 5.0% in Q4 2021.
While a 4.0% increase was registered for landed properties, there was a decrease of 0.6% for non-landed properties.
Breaking down by market segments, the largest decrease was seen for non-landed properties in the RCR at 3.0% (compared to an increase of 6.7% in the previous quarter). Likewise, there was a price drop of 0.5% in the CCR, compared to an increase of 2.7% in the previous quarter. However, a price increase was seen for condos in the OCR, albeit at a slower rate of 1.9%, compared to the previous quarter at 5.7%.
Sun attributed the price increase in the OCR to the high demand and lack of new homes in the suburbs, given that there have been very few mega launches in the OCR this year. The number of unsold stock has also been decreasing.
“Similarly for landed properties, prices registered gains of 4 per cent due to a lack of landed housing stock and strong demand.”
In general, property analysts attributed the slowdown to possible reasons such as the cooling measures, Chinese New Year lull period, a cap on the number of household visitors, the Russian-Ukraine conflict, and lack of new launches.
Outlook on the property market
Nevertheless, they expect sales volume will pick up as social distancing restrictions are relaxed. More launches are lined up in the coming months as well.
“Although the market uncertainties caused by the war in Ukraine could persist for some time, any significant price weakness could signal buying opportunities for buyers waiting on the sideline. Hence, any property price weakness may only last for a short period of time,” said Nicholas Mak, Head of Research and Consultancy at ERA.
“The resale and rental markets will also benefit from the easing of restrictions since employment will be expanding across many industries, and more workers will return in the coming months,” added Sun.
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