Chart of the Day: This graph shows what's worse than the 50% drop in home sales

Sales were still in line with 2009-11.

According to CIMB, while take-up was very low in Dec, new launches were lower. 2H13 new home sales declined over 50% from 1H13 since the implementation of TDSR. 

Total new home sales in 2013 were 30% lower yoy, but largely in line with 2009-11. 

Here's more from CIMB:

Buyers continue to prefer units in the outside central region (OCR) over the core central region (CCR). Goodwood Grand and Leedon Residence (both from CCR) saw low take-up rates of 35% and 3% respectively, despite making up 96% of the units launched.

While only one unit was launched in OCR, 125 units of previously launched projects were sold.

The low take-up in Dec appears seasonal and we expect launches to pick up in 2014. At this run rate, we expect total sales volume to decline by 30-35%% yoy to 10k-11k units.

We think a decline is largely expected by the market. However, inventory levels for most developers remain low. Developers have been testing the market with lower prices, smaller units and accepting lower margins.

This trend should continue as supply completions begin to escalate in 2014. We continue to expect a 10-15% decline in property prices in 2014-15 and this is starting to show through in the URA flash data and market resale prices.

One upside from lower volume and prices is the potential for the government to remove some of its property curbs currently in place.