Prices in the post-Covid phase have caused some to give up on private home ownership altogether, while resale flat prices have stoked public dissent. But there are some signs that, as we move into Q4 2023, the price hikes may finally be losing momentum:We saw a recent news report that, in Q2 this year, private home prices saw a small dip of 0.2 per cent. Not a huge amount, but significant as it's allegedly the first time this happened since Q1 2020.
That said, we don't think a drop in CCR prices means anything to most home buyers. Only the most affluent tend to buy condos in areas like Tanglin, Orchard, Bukit Timah, etc… So even if the price drops here, it's of little help to the average Singaporean. For home buyers, it's probably a relief that this region is not seeing any sharp spikes, even with new launches. It would be better if the average prices were dropping of course, but compared to the wild price increases in the past two years, many would settle for "mostly flat" as a good thing.There was a point in time over 2021/22 where most new launches would have sold well during launch weekend.
For buyers of ECs or resale flats*, there is also the Mortgage Servicing Ratio , which caps monthly repayments at 30 per cent of monthly income We've been seeing this scheme come up more in recent months. This may suggest that developers are seeing more leftover units after TOP, which in turn suggests that it's getting harder to move units.September saw a drop in resale flat prices, the second since February of this year. To be clear, this was a small movement from month-to-month , and resale flat prices are still up around 4.9 per cent year-on-year.