Non-landed private home prices remain flat in August...

According to the BT today, the latest flash estimates from National University of Singapore (NUS) show that prices of non-landed homes remained flattish in August compared to July. This period would not have shown up the impact of the government cooling measures, which were announced on Aug 30.

The Singapore Residential Price Index (SRPI), compiled by the NUS Institute of Real Estate Studies, covers only completed properties.

NUS’s overall price index for non-landed homes for August rose 0.8% month on month, compared with a month-on-month drop of 0.1% for July. The June index was up 0.6% over May. In May, the index appreciated 2.4%.

NUS’s sub-index for Central region, which covers a basket of properties in districts 1 - 4 and 9 -11, was unchanged in August, following a 0.8% month-on-month drop in July. The sub-index for Non-Central region rose 1.5% in August from the preceding month, after a 0.5% increase in July.

Since the end of last year, all three indices have appreciated, to the tune of 10% for the overall index, 7.6% for the Central region and 11.8% for the Non-Central region.

The August flash estimate for Central region is still 4% below the pre-crisis high in November 2007. However, for the Non-Central region, the latest index has surpassed its respective pre-crisis peak in January 2008 by 13.9%. As a result, the overall SRPI flash estimate for August is 6.9% above its Nov 2007 high.

The SRPI is compiled based on a basket of properties for the base period Dec 2001 (* The wife and I have actually changed the period - the BT report actually says Dec 2009, which is inconsistent with the graph. So we reckon it is a typo) comprising 74,359 units in 364 projects within the 26 postal districts completed between Oct 1998 and Sep 2009. The basket is to be reviewed every two years.

Market watchers are awaiting the government’s release of the flash estimates for the Q3 2010 prices indices for private homes and HDB resale flats on Friday for an idea of the impact of the recent cooling measures.

And the wife and I will post the Q3 2010 indices on our blog once we get our hands on them…

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