Tighter financing still impacting home purchases

Mass market dominates bulk of the sales. August primary home sales continued to hold up despite being a traditionally slow month, on moderated price movements, amid growing economic uncertainties. Home sales excluding ECs stood at 1,384 units, a marginal 3.6% m-o-m decline but 8%higher than a year ago. YTD August, 10,785 private residential units (excl ECs) had been transacted. Again, the mass-market segment continues to garner the largest share of sales at 82% supported by several new launches. The top three selling projects include euHabitat by FEO (439 units), Boathouse Residences by a tie up between F&N and FEO (202 units), and The Luxurie (151 units) in Sengkang by Keppel Land. While sales at the high-end saw slower movement with only 65 units sold, prices in this segment remained firm with The Marq at Paterson sold for a record breaking price of S$6,349psf.

Cautious stance remains, developers adopting a fast asset turn strategy. Going into Sept, we believe primary sales are likely to remain robust with relatively healthy take-up seen at recent launches. This includes Sim Lian's 882 unit A Treasure Trove and Hong Leong Holding’s 239-unit Meyerise condominiums which are believed to be about 50% and 30% taken up respectively. However, the secondary market is more subdued as the impact of tighter financing put in place in Jan this year continue to rein in purchases. On the land market, recent land transactions also point to a more cautious outlook going forward as developers become more selective on site locations and land pricing.