Chart of the Day: Foreign buyers snap up pricier homes as locals purchase cheaper units

PRs and foreigners prefer homes priced between $2.0 to $3.0 million.

Foreigners and Permanent Residents (PRs) appear to have bigger budgets compared to locals when it comes to home shopping.

This chart from DTZ shows that Singaporean buyers tend to prefer projects priced under $1 million. In Q1, for instance, the most popular project for Singaporean buyers was The Wisteria, which offered smaller units priced less than $1m.

In contrast, more PRs were seen buying homes priced above $1.5m in Q1. The number of homes priced between $3.0m and $4.0m purchased by PRs rose to 18 in Q1 2016 from 6 in Q4 2015. At the same time, the number of SPRs’ homes purchased priced from $2.0m to $3.0m also increased to 46 from 37 in Q4 2015.

There was also a similar shift in demand for non-PRs, with more purchasing homes in the upper end market. For instance, they bought 40 homes priced from $2.0m to $3.0m, an increase from 19 in Q4 2015. Alternatively, they purchased fewer homes that were priced below $1.5m, as purchases fell to 124 homes from 137 homes in Q4 2015.