Residential sales up by 18% to 3,716 units in Q1

There were about 2,600 newly launched units in January 2021. 

Despite reverting to Phase 2 of the reopening of the economy, buying sentiment has not waned and is likely to result in high nominal GDP growth. With this, private residential prices are expected to rise by 5.5% YoY.

In a recent research by Savills, it was reported that developers are riding on the spillover of positive buyer sentiment from last year as it continued to launch more units since the start of 2021.

In Q1 of 2021, developers launched a total of 3,716 private residential units for sale, 18.1% higher than the 3,147 units launched in the previous quarter. Compared to the same period a year ago, the increase of 77.5% was much larger.

The increase in the number of launched units was largely in January 2021, about 2,600 units, the highest since the 3,489 units recorded in March 2013.

Out of which, the bulk of the launched units came from a mega project – Normanton Park, with 1,862 units. This project made up 50.1% of the total launched units in Q1.

As the number of launched units increased, new sales rose by 34.2% QoQ and 62.5% YoY to 3,493 units.

Apart from strong new sales, transaction volumes in the secondary market also grew by 6.5% QoQ to 4,607 units, which may be due to uncertainties in construction delays and the significant price gap between new and resale properties.

It was also reported that the purchase of non-landed properties by Singaporeans was 5,755 units in Q1, 12.7% higher than the 4,946 units in the previous quarter.