Private Residential Project Launches Rose 23.1% In Q2

Developers launched 16 new private residential projects in the second quarter of 2019, up 23.1 percent from the 13 projects registered in the first quarter or one of the highest quarterly figures since the fourth quarter of 2013.

According to a report by Singapore Business Review citing Savills Singapore, of the 16 projects, eight are located within the Rest of Central Region (RCR), with four each in the Outside Central Region (OCR) and Core Central Region (CCR).

But with the lack of large-scale project, developers only released 1,417 units for sale from the 16 new projects, which is 2.9 percent lower compared to the 1,459 units released in the previous quarter.

“In addition, given economic uncertainty and ample competitors in the market, a majority of developers have carefully paced their launches so as to test not only market acceptance to the benchmark prices set by their respective projects but also potential buyers’ purchasing power,” said Savills Singapore executive director for research Alan Cheong.

Including the 1,085 units from previously launched projects, developers released a total of 2,502 uncompleted private housing units in Q2 2019. While the figure is 16.3 percent lower from the previous quarter, it is still 2.7 percent higher from Q2 2018.

The top five projects during the period under review were Parc Komo, The Woodleigh Residences, Sky Everton, Amber Park and Stirling Residences.

In contrast to the drop in the launch of uncompleted private homes island-wide, new home sales in Q2 2019 rose 27.9 percent quarter-on-quarter to 2,350 units.

Results for the secondary market has also been encouraging, with 2,416 private homes sold in Q2 2019, up 26.8 percent from the 1,905 transacted in the previous quarter.

Meanwhile, buying activity within the luxury market segment revived in the past few months, with 137 non-landed private homes sold for at least $3,000 per sq ft (psf) in Q2 2019.

Cheong noted that this marked the highest sales number since the fourth quarter of 2007.
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“With cooling measures still in place, the active sales in this segment, in particular those super luxury units worth at least $10 million each, surprised the market to some extent,” he said.