HDB resale market records higher sales in May as price growth slows - The Straits Times

SINGAPORE – More Housing Board flats changed hands in May amid slower price growth.

The HDB resale volume was up 3.2 per cent from April, with 2,259 flats sold in May. Compared with the same period a year ago, sales were up by 4.8 per cent, flash data released by real estate portals 99.co and SRX on Thursday showed.

The resale market is also showing its resilience, with HDB resale prices climbing 0.3 per cent, down from the 1.1 per cent growth seen in April. Overall, May’s prices were up by 7.7 per cent more than those from the year before.

Analysts attributed the uptick in sales and slower price growth to various factors.

May’s results could be due to the effects of the cooling measures introduced in September 2022 and the heightened supply of Build-To-Order flats in 2023, said Mr Nicholas Mak, chief research officer at property portal Mogul.sg.

“The marginal price increase is a sign that the HDB resale market is stabilising. However, I don’t think resale prices will fall unless we have a very severe economic slowdown. Currently, there is still healthy underlying demand,” he added.

Since Sept 30, 2022, private home owners must wait 15 months after the sale of their home before they can buy a resale flat without housing grants. The criteria for HDB loans were also tightened.

Mr Mak expects the HDB resale price index to grow by 3 per cent to 6 per cent in 2023.

Ms Wong Siew Ying, PropNex’s head of research and content, said that the increase in housing grants for eligible buyers could have brought more buyers into the market.

Another factor could be the completion of new private residential units and executive condo (EC) units in the first three months of 2023, which led to some flat owners selling their HDB flats as they received the keys to their newly completed homes, said Ms Wong.

Citing data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority that 2,965 private residential units and 820 EC units were completed in the first quarter of 2023, she said she expects a good number of the buyers to be HDB upgraders who will be selling their flats. This will bump up the resale stock slightly in the coming months.

Mr Mak said: “Some of the new Build-To-Order projects launched by the Government in the past 12 months are attractively located... These projects will attract many first-timers and second-timers to apply for the new flats, which will knock some wind out of the sails of the HDB resale market. As a result, HDB resale transactions could dip in the coming months, leading to an estimated 3 per cent to 5 per cent dip in the annual resale volume for the whole of 2023 compared with the previous year.”

May’s data showed that prices were up by 0.7 per cent in mature estates, and 0.3 per cent in non-mature estates, from April. The price increase was noted for three-room and four-room flats and ECs, while prices for five-room flats fell by 0.6 per cent.

About 62 per cent of the resale flat transactions came from non-mature estates, with Woodlands, Sengkang and Punggol being the three most popular, said Ms Wong.

She added that the slowing price growth momentum started from the final three months of 2022.

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