Prices of resale condominiums and apartments up again: SRX
Strength in resale market partly due to en-bloc sale fever
The en-bloc rally continued to boost the private home market last month, with prices of resale condominiums and apartments up again.
Real estate portal SRX Property, which released the data yesterday, also noted that the monthly price change for last month was revised sharply up to 1.2 per cent from the earlier estimate of 0.6 per cent.
Resale prices of non-landed private property rose 1.2 per cent last month compared with April and were a significant 10.8 per cent higher than May last year.
The prime district, or Core Central Region (CCR), increased 1.3 per cent over April while the Outside of Central Region (OCR) rose 1.8 per cent.
Prices in the Rest of Central Region (RCR) remained unchanged. The three regions were up between 9.9 per cent and 11.4 per cent over May last year.
"We can attribute the strength in the resale market partly to the spillover effect from the en-bloc sale fever, where a significant number of collective sales of properties in the OCR and RCR were concluded in the past year," said ZACD Group executive director Nicholas Mak.
Ms Christine Sun, OrangeTee & Tie's head of research and consultancy, noted the "strong upswing" in the market, with resale prices having risen consistently by more than 1 per cent every month since the start of the year.
"The broad-based price recovery indicates that buying interest has returned to all market segments," she added.
May's resale volume was just 0.6 per cent lower, or 10 units fewer than the 1,560 units resold in April. But this was still 25.5 per cent higher than the 1,243 units resold last May.
Overall median Transaction Over X-Value (TOX) was positive $18,000 last month, a decrease of $2,000 compared with the previous month's showing.
TOX measures how much a buyer is overpaying or underpaying on a property based on SRX Property's computer-generated market value.
Among areas with more than 10 resale transactions last month, District 9's Orchard, Cairnhill and River Valley posted the highest median TOX at positive $80,000, which suggests that a majority of the buyers in that district purchased units above the computer-generated market value.
The Kranji and Woodgrove areas that constitute District 25 recorded the most negative median TOX of a negative $7,000, suggesting that a majority of the buyers in that district purchased units below the computer-generated market value.
Ms Sun said: "We foresee that resale prices could experience more upside in the coming months, largely driven by the higher new launched prices from pricier land acquisitions."
She added that prices of some homes in RCR and OCR may rise further as some en-bloc owners are looking for smaller private homes in the mass market or fringe areas for investment. - THE STRAITS TIMES
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