Singapore home prices growth in 4Q12 surpassed pre-crisis peaks

Overall private home prices grew 1.8% QoQ.

 URA’s final price index for 4Q 2012 showed that overall private residential property prices grew 1.8% QoQ, compared to the 0.6% increase in the previous quarter. This is unchanged from the earlier flash estimate announced on 2 January 2013.

According to Colliers International, the further price growth in 4Q 2012 marks another all-time high in the islandwide residential price index, surpassing its previous peaks in 2Q 2008 and 2Q 1996, by 19.4% and 16.8%, respectively.

Growth was spread equally in the landed and non-landed housing segments with prices increasing 1.8% QoQ for both segments, up from the 1.1% and 0.5% increases in 3Q 2012 respectively.

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All three regions experienced higher rates of price growth in 4Q 2012, although the pace of increase varied across the different regions. Prices of non-landed homes in the Outside Central Region (OCR) experienced the greatest increased, rising 3.8% QoQ, a stronger uptick from the 1.0% quarter growth in 3Q 2012. Growth was milder at 0.9% and 0.7% for non-landed homes in the Rest of Central Region (RCR) and Core Central Region (CCR), respectively. The growth for 4Q was also at a faster pace compared to the corresponding increases of 0.8% and 0.1% three months earlier.

Notably, price increases was to some extent, supported by activity in the resale market. In particular, prices of completed non-landed homes in the OCR registered the strongest growth of 5.6%, compared to an increase of 1.5% for uncompleted units in the region. Similarly in the CCR, prices of completed homes rose 1.5% against a fall of 0.4% in the prices of uncompleted homes. This shows that homebuyers have looked to alternatives in the resale market amid persistently high prices in new project launches.

In the RCR, prices of both completed and uncompleted non-landed homes increased 1.0% QoQ in 4Q 2012, against the increases of 1.0% and 0.7% in 3Q 2012, respectively. This could be due to the high profile launches of new projects in the RCR, particularly the launch of Echelon located near the Redhill MRT station, which achieved prices as high as $2,382 per sq ft.

The reacceleration of prices pointed to the continued buoyancy in the mass-market segment, the upward filtering of demand to the mid-tier segment and the gradual recovery of the higher-tier market.