Home prices - public and private - have continued to fall in Singapore, based on the latest government estimates.
Resale prices of public housing flats fell one per cent in the first quarter of this year from the quarter before, according to flash estimates released by the Housing Board yesterday.
This marks the seventh consecutive quarterly fall in prices.
HDB resale prices dropped 1.6 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year from the quarter before.
About 4,040 Build-to-Order flats in Clementi, Punggol North, Sembawang and Tampines will be offered by the HDB next month, the agency added.
About 5,000 flats will be offered in a concurrent Sale of Balance Flats exercise.
More detailed public housing data for January to last month will be released on April 24.
Private home prices slipped 1.1 per cent in the first three months of this year from the final three months of last year, based on flash estimates from the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA).
It is the sixth straight quarter of decline from the peak in the third quarter of 2013.
This followed a similar 1.1 per cent fall in the fourth quarter of last year.
The first-quarter flash estimates are based on a revised approach that captures all private housing transactions and utilises a more sophisticated index methodology to control for property attributes, so that a purer change in price is measured.
For non-landed private residential properties, prices slipped 1.1 per cent in the first quarter, after a one per cent drop in the fourth quarter of last year.
Prices fell 0.6 per cent in the Core Central Region, 1.8 per cent in the Rest of Central Region and 0.9 per cent in the Outside Central Region.
Landed properties also posted a 1.1 per cent dip in prices, after falling by 1.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year.
The statistics will be updated four weeks later, when URA releases the full real estate figures for the first quarter of this year, which capture more data from the caveats lodged, stamp duty records and the take-up of new projects.
"Past data have shown that the difference between the quarterly price changes indicated by the flash estimate and the actual price changes could be significant when the change is small," URA said. "The public is advised to interpret the flash estimates with caution."
This article by The Business Times was published in MyPaper, a free, bilingual newspaper published by Singapore Press Holdings.
Thursday, Apr 02, 2015
The Business Times
Source: AsiaOne