SINGAPORE – Leasing demand for landed homes was still expanding in the second half of 2022 amid a “red-hot” rental market for residential homes, research by real estate agency PropNex has found.
The top leasing transaction signed between July and October was for a good class bungalow in Dalvey Estate near the Singapore Botanic Gardens. It fetched a monthly rental of $85,000, which is equivalent to an annual rental expense of $1.02 million.
The next highest-grossing lease signed was for a property in Oriole Crescent in the Bukit Timah area that fetched a monthly rental of $80,000, PropNex said.
The findings came as the Urban Redevelopment Authority reported that rents of landed properties had shot up 10.9 per cent in the third quarter of 2022, much faster than the 3.2 per cent increase in the previous quarter.
This brought the overall rents of private homes to rise 8.6 per cent, a clip faster than the 6.7 per cent growth in the previous quarter.
It was the fastest pace of growth since the third quarter of 2007.
PropNex noted that given the sustained leasing interest and rising rentals, more owners of landed homes may opt to rent out their property instead of putting them on the market.
This is as rental demand and interest from high-net-worth foreigners for luxury landed homes are likely to stay elevated in the near term, it said.
“In the light of geopolitical tensions in several parts of the world, Singapore’s status as a safe haven has prompted more foreigners to seek residences in the city state,” PropNex added.
Still, some headwinds persist.
“With looming concerns over a global recession, businesses may be more prudent about their expansion, as well as review their expatriate headcount and corporate housing budget for expatriate staff,” said PropNex.
Meanwhile, the agency reported a slowdown in the sales of prestige landed homes, or landed properties valued at more than $10 million.
In the second half of 2022, there were transactions for 40 such homes valued at a combined $605 million – a weaker showing compared with the 49 deals worth $776 million conducted in the first half.
Between Jan 1 and Dec 4, the prestige landed market garnered only $1.4 billion worth of sales, which is 57 per cent lower than the $3.2 billion achieved in the full year of 2021. There were 162 of such deals in 2021, compared with 89 in 2022. THE BUSINESS TIMES
