Private Home Sales: Strong April, weak May?

The BT today reported that private home sales surged 25.3% month-to-month to a higher than expected 2,207units. This is the highest monthly figure in nine months and takes the sales tally for the first four months of this year to 6,857 units, nearly 45% of the figure for the whole of last year.

But far from opening the bubbly, industry players are watching how home buyers react to ongoing stock market jitters and fears about a contagion effect in Europe from Greece's problem.

Developers’ sales activity is expected to fall in May as there have been few launches so far this month. But projects such as The Minton in Hougang are expected to be launched next week. Allgreen is also previewing The Cascadia at Bukit Timah this week to retail buyers, after selling 187 of the project’s 536 units to two funds a few years ago.

Last week, Frasers Centrepoint began sales of Flamingo Valley at an average price of $1,200psf to former owners of the site as well as some of its loyal customers, and will soft launch the freehold project this weekend.

The 2,207 unit- home sales by developers in April is the second highest level since URA began releasing monthly developer homes sales data in June 2007. The highest sales volume was 2,772 units in July last year.

The strong sales in April were a function of the surge in launches. Developers launched a total of 2,084 homes last month, up 16.4% from March.

Island wide, the top three selling projects in the primary market last month were Waterbank at Dakota (573 units sold at a median price of $1,178psf), Tree House (374 units at a median price of $835psf) and The Interlace (144 units at $1,067psf median price).

 
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