Primary home sales rebounds 84% post-Hungry Ghost month

This is the highest level of activity since 2009.

Here's more from DBS Vickers:

Strong rebound post Hungry Ghost Month. Primary homes sales (excl ECs) in Sept rebounded 84% m-o-m to 2621 units. Adding ECs, the number would have reached 2771 units, up 80% from the previous month.

This is the highest level of activity since July 2009 and brings the 9M primary sales figure to 17,927 units, higher than the level of transactions in 2011 of 15,902 units.

The strong sales were a function of higher number of launches as well as strong demand as take up rate exceeded 1x. We believe this was also due to some pent up demand with the decline in homes sales in Aug. The best selling projects were Eco in Bedok South, Kovan Regency and Riversails, which made up 41% of total sales.

There was also improved take up from the relaunch of Wing Tai’s Foresque Residences which saw another 104 units changing hands. High end activity was concentrated on UIC’s V on Shenton, where 49 units were transacted.

Activity to moderate post cooling measures. We believe sales in the coming months could taper down from these levels after the recent round of property cooling measures which saw further tightening in loan tenures and quantums, which could affect marginal buyers who rely more on mortgage to finance purchases.

Under the still low interest rate environment, we believe residential volumes would continue to remain above average but residential prices are likely to decelerate in momentum with the large incoming supply in 2013.