The property market will continue to stabilize despite HDB Private home prices rising during Q1: Desmond Lee

Desmond Lee, Minister for National Development in Singapore, has stated that while there are variations between quarters when it is the resale value of private homes and Housing Board properties, the authorities are expecting the market to remain stable.

The Government will watch the trends closely over the next few months, said Mr. Lee who spoke to reporters on the sidelines of the opening of the Greenfly Allotment Garden in Boon Lay on the 27th of April.

His comments come a day following the release of HDB’s latest resale data and private housing data for the quarter that started in 2024.

Prices for HDB flats for resales increased by 1.8 percent during the initial quarter of 2024. This was more than the previous quarter’s 1.1 per cent. According to figures that were released by the statutory board it was the 16th consecutive quarter in the series of price hikes from the second quarter of 2020.

According to the figures published by the Urban Redevelopment Authority, the prices of private homes rose by 1.4 percent in the quarter’s first.

Season-to-season and quarter by quarter there will be fluctuations (HDB resale) prices. However, if you examine the trends year-to-year, year to year, last year’s price growth for resales was smaller than that of the year before, 2022, and 2022’s growth was less than 2022’s previous year,” Mr Lee said.

HDB resale prices rose 4.9 per cent in 2023. This was lower than the 10.4 per cent increase in 2022 as well as the 12.7 percent increase in 2021.

He explained that the reason for this was a combination of factors, including HDB catching up to the construction delays caused by the Covid-19 Pandemic and continuing to ramp-up Build-to-Order (BTO).

From 2021-2025, the authorities will begin to launch 100,000 BTO homes. At the time of February, more than 67,000 BTO flats had been offered for sale.

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The private housing market has also seen a significant growth.

In the first quarter of 2024 the Government Land Sales Programme is anticipated to offer 5,450 private residences on 10 properties. This is the seventh half-yearly increase in the number of homes available since the beginning of 2021.

The sites on the list will be sold in line with the schedule and regardless of demand.

“We have also introduced an array of cooling measures, so that we can ensure that the market for property – on both the private and HDB side – stays in line with the economic fundamentals,” added Mr Lee.

Mr Lee on April 27 also singled out a five-room unit in the Design, Build and Sell Scheme (DBSS) project in Toa Payoh. The project has an estimated price of $2 million that was the subject of much the attention of many in recent days.

The scheme was launched in 2005 to provide more affluent flat buyers houses with superior designs and finishes, but was suspended in 2011. DBSS flats, which are built on land that is owned by the government and developed by private developers, were shut down in the year 2011.

Mr Lee has averted any doubts about whether this reflects more expensive resales prices, saying: “These are headliners, and the percentage of flats sold for $1 million and more remains a very small proportion of the overall amount of resales that occur each year.” He noted that many of such flats are characterized by specific characteristics which include being more rare or larger units, located on the top floor or located near a transport hub and malls.

There were 61 flats sold that traded hands for at least $1 million in March. Based on data from real estate portals Singapore Real Estate Exchange (SREX) and 99.co it was one percent of 2,063 homes that were sold as resales during the same time.

The allotment garden which Mr. Lee inaugurated at the ground level of Block 209 Boon Lay Place on April 27 provides residents with individual plots of gardening, and is the 15th and most recent garden to be completed under HDB and URA’s Lively Places Fund.

Eight additional gardens are on their way.

At the end of March, HDB had disbursed nearly $1.1 million from the fund, which has supported 223 projects like community and allotment gardens on open green spaces as well as multi-storey carpark roof decks.