New home sales ballooned 131.6% to 1,054 units in March

Ongoing projects like The Tre ver, Riverfront Residences and Parc Bottania saw strong market take-up.

New home sales surged 131.6% MoM and 47.2% YoY to 1,054 units in March, according to the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s (URA) developers’ sales survey. Including executive condominium (EC) units, developers sold 1,062 units last month, registering a 132.4% MoM increase. 

New home sales excluding ECs were also 47.2% higher than a year ago.

For Q1 2019, the sales of new homes remained resilient at 1,946 new homes. This is 23.1% higher than the 1,581 units sold in Q1 2018, based on URA’s Q4 2018 real estate statistics report, although no cooling measures were implemented a year ago.

In March, 1,812 private homes were launched, of which 170 were in the core central region (CCR), 576 in the rest of central region (RCR) and 1066 outside the central region (OCR). There were a few new project launches, including Treasure at Tampines that sold 289 units, The Florence Residences which sold 77 units, Boulevard 88 with 26 units sold, One Meyer with 10 units and The Essence with six units.

Higher MoM sales were also observed across many ongoing projects such as The Tre Ver, Riverfront Residences, Parc Botannia, Stirling Residences, Parc Esta, The Tapestry, The Garden Residences and Whistler Grand, according to Christine Sun, head of research and consultancy at OrangeTee & Tie.

The highest-priced unit that was sold in March was for a 528-sqm 28th floor unit at Boulevard 88 that was transacted at $28m or $4,927 per sqft, URA added. “This is also the highest per square foot price transacted for a new sales unit since June 2013 ($5,001 per sqft at Reignwood Hamilton Scotts),” Sun noted.

“Sentiment was positive for the super luxury home segment as there was a significant pick up in the number of units sold last month. According to URA Realis data, 25 new private homes were sold above $5m, the highest number recorded for a single month since December 2013,” she explained. Of the 25 units, 20 were from Boulevard 88 and 5 were from Marina One Residences. For these 25 units, 10 were bought by Singaporeans whilst 15 were bought by foreigners.

According to Eugene Lim, key executive officer at ERA Realty Network, whilst buyers were mainly Singaporean, purchases by foreigners in March accounted for 38% of units sold in the prime districts of 9 and 10. “We expect these trends to persist throughout 2019, as buyers remain spoilt for choice, with more projects being rolled out by developers. Whilst developers’ overall project cost remain high, they will have to price attractively to drive sales,” he said.