Singapore private home sales dip 0.2% to 653 units in April

Normanton Park was the top seller with 52 transactions.

According to Knight Frank, primary sales in the private residential market in April 2022 was similar to that of the previous month, decreasing by a slight 0.2% to 653 units (excluding Executive Condominiums (ECs)), one sale less when compared to the 654 units in March 2022. 

During the month, the majority of the sales continued to be located in the Rest of Central Region (RCR), where Normanton Park was again the top seller recording 52 transactions. 

Here’s more from Knight Frank:

Normanton Park was the monthly top seller in Q1 2022 and for the past five consecutive months now with just 66 unsold units left out of 1,862 (3.5% left unsold). With the inclusion of ECs, North Gaia executive condominium recorded the highest number of sales in a project in April with 166 transactions out of a total of 616 units.

April 2022 should be the last month where the market remains in a state of pause, after the announcement of the 15 December 2021 cooling measures. The launch and sales momentum at Piccadilly Grand in May (315 sales in the first weekend of launch) as well as the number of visitors at the LIV@MB showflat should now encourage developers to start launching projects, as it is clear that there is underlying demand for new product despite the measures. 

When the cooling measures were first announced, Knight Frank expected that the private residential home market would linger in a state of pause. But even then, not for too long. Not even as long as two quarters. The fact that there are more buyers than there are sellers was predicted to re-establish buying volume before Q2 2022 ends, even though new sales volume from January to April 2022 is estimated at a mere 2,478 units, just slightly over half of the estimated 4,763 new sales from January to April 2021.

As it stands, there are already some 500 new sales logged for May 2022 with just more than a week of caveats lodged in this uncompleted month. Therefore, in the months ahead, developers will now be emboldened to launch projects to capture what-has-been pent up demand and owner occupier demand before interest rates rise further during the course of 2022. New sales volume should now start catching up and remains on track to reach 8,000 to 9,000 units for the whole of 2022.

This is also the first month since September 2021, where primary sales volume increased in the Core Central Region (CCR) while volumes fell in the Rest of Central Region (RCR) and Outside Central Region (OCR). There were 206 new sales in the CCR, up by 34.6% from the 153 units last month, while primary transactions in the RCR and OCR fell by 9.7% and 12.7% respectively. It might be too soon to tell, but perhaps the increase in cross border travel volumes and the opening of air lanes has started to lure overseas investors, in spite of the 30% Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty (ABSD) for foreigners. 

Some high-net-worth families and individuals will still be lured by wealth opportunities and the eco-system of wealth management in Singapore. This aligns with findings from the Knight Frank Wealth Report 2022, where the luxury market in Singapore was surveyed as the top Asian location of choice among the Asian wealthy when buying a new home. Home buyers from China, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) listed Singapore in their top five locations abroad when considering investment homes. 

The move to the Vaccinated Travel Framework from 31 March 2022 might just be the game-changing measure that opens up the CCR to foreign home buyers who have been waiting out the last two years of the pandemic. In April 2022, there was already a slight uptick in the volume of foreign purchases, with 93 sales (exclude EC) to foreigners, up from an average of 50 monthly sales in Q1 2022.