Owner listings dominate Singapore’s auction market in Q1

This is the eighth consecutive quarter when owner listings exceeded mortgagee listings.

Total auction listings in Singapore climbed 16.9% y-o-y to 90 in Q1 2024, from the 77 in Q1 2023. The bulk of the increase contributed by owner sale listings, signalling that auctions continued to be a trending choice among owners.

According to Knight Frank, there were 22 mortgagee listings in Q1 2024, a 29.0% decline from the 31 in Q4 2023. On a yearly basis, this was two less than the 24 in Q1 2023. 

Here’s more from Knight Frank:

The number of mortgagee listings in the first quarter of 2024 was nowhere near the highest ever in a quarter at 176 recorded in Q1 2020. Previously, mortgagee listings from 2018 to 2019 were typically more than 100 each quarter, in tandem with rising interest rates then. In the current environment where interest rates have been elevated and are expected to remain so for a substantial duration before rate cuts are implemented, more distressed properties could be introduced.

During the quarter, there were 12 residential mortgagee listings, 45.5% less than the 22 listings in the previous quarter. Retail mortgagee listings rose slightly to four in Q1 2024, compared to Q4 2023 when three shops were listed. Meanwhile, there was one office and five industrial mortgagee listings in the quarter, unchanged from Q4 2023.

Two newly listed mortgagee properties were sold at premiums ranging between 2.9% and 4.3%. A non-landed home located in The Sea View was listed just once in the quarter, with an opening price of S$3.5 million and was eventually sold at S$3.6 million. The other property sold at a premium was a 60-year leasehold industrial unit in Vertex which was listed for mortgagee sale with an opening price of S$925,000 and was knocked down at S$965,000.

Owner sales

There were 68 owner listings in Q1 2024, 3.0% higher than the 66 in the previous quarter, and 47.8% more than the 46 in Q1 2023. This also marked an eighth consecutive quarter when owner listings exceeded mortgagee listings. While the auction platform continued to appeal to owners in order to garner more interest to their properties, some owner listings could have arisen out of distress, where in certain cases financial institutions might encourage owners to dispose these assets before repossession proceedings are initiated.

There were 31 residential owner listings in Q1 2024, higher than the 26 in the previous quarter, and higher than the 12 in the same period last year. Office and industrial owner listings numbered seven and 13 respectively in Q1 2024, a decline from the nine and 15 listings in Q4 2023. At the same time, retail owner listings remained unchanged from the previous quarter with 15.

Of the 13 industrial owner listings, 11 industrial properties were freehold while the remaining two were leasehold. Two freehold B2 factories situated in M-Space along Mandai Estate were sold at their opening price of S$1.33 million and S$1.89 million respectively. Despite the rarity of freehold industrial properties island wide, business owners are selective as well when it came to choosing properties with the right mix of attributes for business operations as well as for investment.