Testing

1. business44
today•Wednesday15April2015
SHOP ONLINE AT
More private homes resold last
month amid slowing price decline
Angela Teng
angelateng@mediacorp.com.sg
SINGAPORE — The private residential
market is showing signs of stirring
from its slumber, as the volume of
transactions for resale non-landed
homes jumped last month, while the
decline in prices moderated.
Resale prices for non-landed pri-
vate homes dipped by 0.2 per cent
last month from February, advance
estimatesfromSRXPropertyshowed
Volatility of overall resale
SRX index ‘has narrowed
over past few months, which
points to a stabilising market’
The stabilising
resale prices
have also
attracted
more buyers
back and we
are hopeful
that the
momentum
can continue
... to bump up
the overall
resale volume
for this year.
Mr Eugene Lim
key executive
officer of real
estate agency ERA
Resale prices for non-landed private homes fall 0.2%, narrowing from 0.4% drop in February
yesterday, narrowing from the re-
vised 0.4 per cent drop in the previ-
ous month.
Comparedwithayear earlier,pric-
es fell by 3.9 per cent last month.
Activity picked up after the Chi-
nese New Year lull in February, with
atotalof440homessoldlastmonth—
a 31 per cent increase from February
and an 18.6 per cent rise from March
last year, the SRX data showed.
Mr Eugene Lim, key executive of-
ficer of real estate agency ERA, said:
“While sellers have become more
reasonable in their expectations,
they are not under tremendous pres-
sure to sell and not prepared to con-
sider ridiculously low offers from op-
portunistic buyers. Going forward,
this trend is likely to continue in the
months ahead.”
While housing loan interest rates
have been rising, the increase has
been slight and has not exerted un-
bearable pain on property owners in
general, he said.
However, overly-leveraged, multi-
ple-property owners who are holding
untenantedunitsarebeginningtofeel
the burden and may be pressured to
sell, he added.
The SRX report showed price falls
of 0.4 per cent and 0.3 per cent in the
OutsideCentralRegion(OCR)andthe
Core Central Region (CCR), respec-
tively, while prices in the Rest of Cen-
tral Region (RCR) rose 0.4 per cent.
“Only RCR properties bucked the
trend, but this could be due to thin
volumes and the types of properties
transacted,”saidMrWongXianYang,
manager of research and consultancy
at real estate agency OrangeTee.
“The volatility of the overall resale
SRXindexhasnarrowedoverthepast
few months, which points to a stabi-
lising market. New information has
to come in, such as the tweaking of
coolingmeasuresorahigher-than-ex-
pected hike in interest rates, before
we see any large price movements,”
he added.
Mr Lim said: “The stabilising re-
sale prices have also attracted more
buyers back and we are hopeful that
the momentum can continue in the
months ahead, to bump up the over-
all resale volume for this year.”
He added that “if the current mo-
mentum carries through the year,
we may see a total of 5,000 to 6,000
transactions for this year”, up from
4,860resaleunitssoldlastyear,based
on official statistics from the Urban
Redevelopment Authority.
For the full year, Mr Lim expects
private-home prices to fall by 5 to
8 per cent, in the absence of any ex-
ternal shocks to the economy and the
property market.