Chart of the Day: Cheap OCR homes lure foreign buyers to Singapore

Homes under $1m are in great demand.

Cheap homes in outlying regions continue to hold allure for foreign buyers looking to snap up a home in Singapore.

Data from DTZ show that the number of foreigner home purchases below $1.0m continued to trend upwards, as opposed to properties under other price bands.

The volume of transactions by foreigners for properties priced between $0.5 million to $1.0 million rose by 58.5% in the first nine months of 2015. 

In contrast, properties priced between $1.0 million and $2.0 million observed a 12.0% drop in foreign purchasers over the same period.

In the third quarter, the number of foreign purchasers fell across the Core Central Region (CCR) and the Rest of Central Region (RCR) by 38.1% and 23.9% q-o-q. 

In contrast, the OCR market segment was more resilient with sales falling by 11% q-o-q in Q3 2015. 

“The narrowing price gap between buyers and sellers for projects in OCR attributed to the moderated decline. Besides being more affordable, most of the OCR projects are proximate to the new MRT stations on the upcoming Downtown and East CoastThomson Lines, which will offer faster access to the Central Business District,” the report said.