Singapore primary home sales to reach under 7,000 units this year

No thanks to the tepid take up from January to May.

According to a Knight Frank report, there were less newly launched units in May 2024 numbering 248, even lower than the 278 units launched in the previous month of April when activity was also largely muted. 

Based on the developer sales data, there were three new launches in May that consisted of Skywaters Residences with a total of 190 units, and boutique developments of Jansen House (21 units) and Straits At Joo Chiat (16 units). As a result, there were 221 new sales (excluding executive condominiums (ECs)) in May, 26.6% lower than the already slow 301 sales in April.

Here’s more from Knight Frank:

The highest selling project in the month was Lentor Hill Residences with 25 units sold, and in second place, Hill Haven, after 23 units were transacted. The month of May was characterised mostly by existing projects selling remaining units in the Outside Central Region (OCR). Nevertheless, the sale of the penthouse at Skywaters Residences in the CBD crossed the $6,000 psf level in May with a unit price of S$6,100 psf, a first for a 99-year leasehold development.

Based on past data from the monthly developer’s sales, there was a monthly average of 616 new sales in 2022, and 556 units in 2023. But in the five months from January to May 2024, the monthly average was only 339 units. The official primary sales numbers in Q1 2024 together with the developer sales in April and May totalled 1,686 units in the first five months of 2024.

The market appears to be in a quiet phase, after the completion of almost 20,000 units in 2023 together with interest rates that look to be higher for longer, throughout most of 2024. Homebuyers remain more selective, no longer showing the kind of urgency and fear-of-missing-out (FOMO) behaviour at showflats that was a feature of the market from the second half of 2020 to the first half of 2022. Buyers scouring the new home market will continue to take their time to identify the right project with attributes that will suit their lifestyle preferences.

At the start of the year, Knight Frank projected primary sales volume to range between 7,000 and 9,000 units in 2024. However, with the current tepid take up in the first five months of the year, it is quite likely that the number of new sales might come in under 7,000 units. Sales volume is likely to remain subdued until such time as interest rates are cut, or perhaps if the government were to ease some of the cooling measures.