Singapore private home sales rebounded to the highest since July, as a flurry of project launches reversed a three-month decline.
Purchases of new apartments jumped almost four times to 784 units in November from 203 a month earlier, according to figures released Friday by the Urban Redevelopment Authority.
The recovery had been widely anticipated after a recent batch of residential projects saw strong demand. They included a suburban development in the west side of the financial hub that sold 88% of the homes it made available in its first weekend.
Strong local demand has continued to buoy Singapore’s housing market, one of the most resilient and expensive in the world, despite rising interest rates and a series of curbs to cool the boom.
Still, there are signs that the market is slowing. Demand from foreigners in particular has been hit by the doubling of levies for their property purchases to 60% in April. Foreign buyers have made up about 4% of total transaction activity in the private market this year, down from more than 6% in the first quarter, according to Singapore’s central bank.
Citigroup Inc expects a sizeable pipeline of project launches next year to “weigh on sales velocity and result in flattish volumes”, analyst Brandon Lee wrote in a note this week. That will be “mitigated by stable price growth, improving affordability and limited policy risk”, he said. Source: The edge malaysia
