Although Singapore was going through its COVID-19 circuit breaker during April and May, interestingly, the sales of new private homes went up last month.
As per the figures put forward by sales caveats, Knight Frank Singapore, the developers sold 484 new private homes in May. This is about 74.7% more than the 277 private homes that were marketed in April. Knight Frank also clarified that around 967 caveats for private homes were registered during the period of April 7 to June 1. Out of these, 380 units were categorized under resale transactions and 577 for new sales, whereas only 10 were assigned for sub-sales.
The silver lining is that this surge came through despite the social distancing norms and restrictions that were implemented during this period and disrupted in-person property viewing during this period.
The head of research at Knight Frank, Singapore, Mr. Leonard Tay made it clear that the sales of new homes ruled all the other forms of private residential transactions in May. Notwithstanding the constraints on physical restrictions, there is still a lot of scope for the real estate market to improve. He added that homebuyers too, on their part have dealt with the pandemic and the repercussions that accompanied it in this sector with a lot of understanding and flexibility.
It could also be that a lot of the homeowners who finalized the contracts in May had surveyed the flats prior to the commencement of the circuit breaker and then, after staying at home for weeks, they finally delineated a positive decision in terms of their purchase. Somehow, the buyers have become more confident about their choices abetted by online information and visuals.
Even though the sales of private homes stalled in May over that of April, they are still less by 49% from what the statistics were a year ago when the developers put 952 units up for sale. On a whole, the demand for resold and new homes was lagging last month, when contrasted against the first quarter of the year that had a total average of 1,387 caveats. Even in such tight circumstances, the figures for last month were better than that of April. To be precise, May encountered 2.6% more transactions (from 627 units to 643) than its preceding month.
Ms. Christine Sun also pointed out that more than 90% of the new homes that were bought by the public last month were situated at the peripheries of the central region (OCR) and the rest of the central region (RCR). This is, nonetheless, a turnaround from April because then the houses in the central region were more in demand assessed against the other parts.
On being asked why did the sales increase in the last month amid the humdrum, Ms. Sun averred that it could be because some of the buyers made up their minds to enter the market after being acquainted with the reports claiming that innumerable wealthy investors are keeping an eye on Singapore’s market and the price quantum of home units in RCR and OCR are being made affordable for the buyers.
The best-selling new launch condos of May were namely Parc Clematis (55 units), Treasures at Tampines (56 units), and The Florence Residences (54 units).
