Do you notice that improved sentiments are mainly on developer sales, but not from the HDB, resale or rental market?
Last Friday URA just released the price index of private residential properties for 1st quarter 2017. Prices of landed properties declined by 1.8 percent while prices of non-landed properties remained unchanged.
New sales made up 59 per cent and 66 per cent of total sales in the RCR and OCR respectively.
Launching more projects in the same quarter doesn’t mean that the market is turning the corner. It only implies that developers are in a hurry to launch new projects. If they miss this golden opportunity, nobody can tell how long they need to wait.
According to URA, as of the end of 1st quarter, there are 46,016 units (including ECs) in the supply pipeline and 18,870 units remain unsold. From now till end of 2017, there are 14,242 units waiting for TOP.
How long does it take for actual demand (HDB upgraders, import of foreigners, natural population growth, etc.) to catch up with ongoing supply?
Anybody can tell how fast Fed will raise interest rate? Can we foresee the economy to pick up or deteriorate in the next 6 to 12 months? How will the macro factors (political tensions, global debts, etc.) impact the Singapore economy?
If the negatives outnumber the positives, any small upward movement in sales volume or price movement is not called bottoming-out. It is a dead cat bounce – except that the bounce is almost non-existent because we don’t really see a recovery in the market.
And after that, expect a ‘real’ correction in the market. A 10 percent drop in prices we are seeing now is nothing.
Don’t believe what I say? Take some hints from what the media had predicted in 1994 and 1995. Did you remember what really happened to the property market after 1996?
