Five OCR projects dominate October private home sales

See which five sold 100 units each.

According to online residential and commercial property portal group PropertyGuru, home sales in OCR was recorded at 2,158, five projects in the region sold more than 100 units that constituted close to 50% of the total sales volume in the month.

1,948 new private homes were sold last month, 26% down than the 2,621 in September but 40% more than a year ago when 1,392 units were sold.

These were:

• Heron Bay: The EC project launched in the last week of October saw record sales of 354 units at a median price of $738 per square foot (psf). The lowest psf price was recorded at $597. The project is more than 90% sold.
• Skies Miltonia: Located at Yishun overlooking Lower Seletar Reservoir, the project is 82% sold with 309 units out of 420 launched sold. The median price is $1,034 psf.
• Riversails: 271 units were sold at a median price of $848 psf.
• Waterbay: 221 units were sold at a median price of $752 psf.
• eCO: 149 units were sold at a median price of $1,392 psf.
• Riversails and eCO are among the top 30 searched projects in October on www.propertyguru.com.sg

Nine units were sold with a psf price of more than $3000. The costliest unit sold was recorded at $4,289 psf from the project Sage along Nassim Road in district 10. Another unit from The Ritz-Carlton Residences Singapore Cairnhill was sold at $4,128 psf.

The most affordable unit was sold at $538 psf from Waterbay. 162 units are left unsold out of the 383 units in the project. Close to Punggol MRT Station and Sengkang MRT Station, this recently launched EC project is due to be completed in 2016. Prices range from S$560,000 for a two-bedroom unit to S$1.04 million for a five-bedroom unit. Parc Vera and Arc at Tampines sold a unit each at an affordable price of around $570 psf.

In the Core Central Region (CCR), 144 units were sold in the month. V On Shenton was the most popular project in the region and sold 33 units at a median price of $2,263 psf. Leedon Residence and d'leedon were also among the more popular projects. Most affordable unit in CCR was sold at $1,413 psf from Leedon Residence.

Sales in Rest of Central Region (RCR) reached 322, strongly supported by Sky Green. The project sold 145 units at a median price of $1,516 psf.

Sharing other private home sales data for the month of October, PropertyGuru revealed that new private homes including executive condominiums (ECs), sales volume was 5% down month-to-month and reached 2,624 new homes. For the first ten months of 2012, new sale of ECs stand at 22,723, 18% more than the 19,306 in the whole of 2011.

Developers launched 2,410 new homes in October, 8% more than the 2,224 in the previous month.

676 EC units were sold in the month. As mentioned ealier, Heron Bay and Waterbay were the most popular projects this month.

"As the holiday season approaches, home launches as well as sales volume are expected to remain low for the rest of the year. The recently introduced restrictions on loan tenure might also affect home sales. Some buyers may postpone their purchasing decision as they adopt a wait-and-see approach on how the measures will affect them. Nevertheless, keeping in mind the current strong buying momentum and other demand drivers, private home sales (excluding ECs) are expected to surpass 20,000 by the end of the year," noted PropertyGuru.