SINGAPORE – Prices of Housing Board resale flats continued to climb for the 31st straight month in January, with more units changing hands as the market adjusted to property cooling measures introduced last September.
HDB resale flat prices grew at a quicker pace of 1.4 per cent in January compared with December’s 0.2 per cent, according to flash data from real estate portals 99.co and SRX on Thursday.
Prices were up 8.7 per cent year on year.
More HDB resale flats were sold in January, with the number rising by 14.9 per cent to an estimated 2,575 units from 2,242 units last December.
Compared with January 2022, transactions were up by 5.4 per cent.
Property analysts noted that sales volume had risen for the third consecutive month, indicating that the demand for resale flats has recovered from the cooling measures.
ERA Realty head of research and consultancy Nicholas Mak said buyers who were hoping for prices to fall after the September property curbs had observed that prices were not contracting, and returned to the market before further increases.
“The waiting by these buyers has resulted in pent-up demand in the HDB resale market which would be released in the first quarter of 2023,” he added.
Buyers are also most likely motivated by a sense of urgency to take advantage of current market conditions, said One Global Group senior analyst Mohan Sandrasegeran.
“Given the fluctuating interest rates (for bank loans), home buyers may have wanted to take advantage of HDB’s concessionary interest rate of 2.6 per cent before there are any potential changes, as it is reviewed on a quarterly basis,” he said.
Price increases were seen across all flat types in mature and non-mature estates, with prices of four-room flats climbing the most, by 2.3 per cent.
This was the highest monthly price growth for four-room flats since January 2022, when prices rose 2.4 per cent, said OrangeTee & Tie senior vice-president of research and analytics Christine Sun.
“The strong home sales and faster pace of price growth came as a surprise since inflationary pressures and interest rates remain high, and there were other factors like the Chinese New Year festivities and cooling measures,” she said.
Some HDB owners hoping to upgrade to a private property may have turned to the HDB resale market instead – as private home prices have been rising – pushing prices up, Ms Sun added.
But PropNex Realty head of research and content Wong Siew Ying said some HDB owners are more open to adjusting their asking price in view of the high interest rate environment faced by buyers.
More million-dollar flats were transacted in January, with 40 HDB resale flats changing hands for at least $1 million, up from 28 units last December.
The number of million-dollar HDB flats sold comprises 1.6 per cent of the total resale volume in January.
Ms Sun said January’s million-dollar transactions were above the number of such transactions each month from January to August 2022, before cooling measures were introduced to moderate demand and encourage prudent borrowing.
Larger flats continued to make up a large proportion of the million-dollar deals, with 45 per cent of January’s transactions being five-room flats, said Mr Sandrasegeran.
Among the million-dollar flats sold, there were five each in Ang Mo Kio and the central area, and four each in Kallang/Whampoa, Bishan, Toa Payoh, Clementi and Queenstown.
The most expensive resale flat was a five-room, 106 sq m unit between the 40th and 42nd storeys at The Pinnacle@Duxton in Cantonment Road that sold for $1.34 million.
Ms Wong noted that a three-room unit was among January’s million-dollar transactions – a 155 sq m terraced house in Jalan Bahagia in Kallang/Whampoa with a remaining lease of more than 48 years, sold for $1.068 million.
