Yong Hui Ting
PRICES of resale Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats rose again in January this year, gaining an average of 1.4 per cent compared with December last year, according to flash figures released by SRX and 99.co on Thursday (Feb 9).
This is a steeper incline than the past few months, where December saw a 0.2 per cent increase; November a 0.6 per cent gain, and October a 0.5 per cent growth.
OrangeTee & Tie’s senior vice-president of research and analytics Christine Sun said that the strong home sales and faster pace of price growth came as a surprise, since inflationary pressures and interest rates remain high, coupled with factors like the Chinese New Year festivities and cooling measures.
“These trends may indicate that there are many genuine buyers in the market. There remains ample demand for public housing partly due to some upgraders turning to the HDB resale market in light of the rising private home prices.”
Prices for mature and non-mature estates in January rose 1.6 per cent and 1.4 per cent respectively, compared to December 2022.
The number of flats that transacted for at least S$1 million last month also rose to 40, a 42.9 per cent rise from the 28 transactions recorded in December.
The total number of resale flats that changed hands in January was also up 14.9 per cent, to 2,575 for the month. This puts the number of million-dollar HDBs transacted at about 1.6 per cent of the total resale volumes in January.
Year on year, the price increase from January 2022 stood at 8.7 per cent, whereas transaction volumes saw a 5.4 per cent incline.
99 Group’s head of research Pow Ying Khuan said: “The HDB resale market continues to be extremely resilient even in the face of two rounds of cooling measures within nine months and high resale prices that are stretching homebuyers’ budget.”
Pow noted that the number of transactions in January had rebounded, even though January was traditionally considered as one of the lull months given the various holidays and festivities that happened around the period.
Sorting prices by room types, four-room HDB flats saw the largest gain in prices, expanding 2.3 per cent, higher than five-rooms’ gains at 0.5 per cent and three-rooms at a 1.1 per cent increase.
Pow said the uptick in resale prices could have been inadvertently driven up by the cooling measures imposed on downgraders.
“Notably, the number of flats sold for more than a million dollars reached 40 last month, which is the second highest ever number,” said Pow.
One Global Group’s senior analyst, research & content creation Mohan Sandrasegeran said the rise in million-dollar deals in the HDB resale market may be attributed to home buyers seeking larger spaces.
Those who are unable to find suitable options in the private resale market could also be redirecting their focus towards the HDB resale market, he added.
The highest transacted price for a HDB flat in January came from a five-room unit at The Pinnacle @ Duxton, which was sold for about S$1.3 million.
Most of the units transacted last month came from non-mature estates. These units made up 59.1 per cent of the resale volumes in January. Mature and non-mature estates prices rose by 8 per cent and 9.1 per cent respectively from a year ago.
“It remains to be seen if the price and volume surge observed in January data would continue for the rest of the year, even though in any case we expect prices to remain strong while demand continues to outweigh supply,” said 99.co’s Pow.