Prices of Housing Board resale flats inched up by 0.6 per cent in August, with a record 54 units changing hands for at least $1 million each.
It was the fourth consecutive month that HDB resale flat prices grew by less than 1 per cent, although the increase is higher than July’s 0.3 per cent, according to flash data from real estate portals 99.co and SRX on Thursday.
The price growth was mostly driven by larger flats, with prices of five-room flats rising by 1.5 per cent and executive flats climbing 1.6 per cent, said OrangeTee & Tie senior vice-president of research and analytics Christine Sun.
But she said the growth rate in the first eight months of 2023 has slowed, compared with the same period in 2022 and 2021.
From January to August 2023, resale prices rose 4.8 per cent, lower than the 6.4 per cent increase in 2022 and the 9.2 per cent in 2021 recorded over the same months, she noted.
The million-dollar transactions in August topped the previous record of 45 such sales in September 2022, the month when property cooling measures were introduced.
Analysts pointed to the reclassification of HDB flats that will kick in from the H2 2024, when Build-To-Order flats in choicer locations will fall under the Prime and Plus categories that come with stricter resale conditions.
Most of the million-dollar flats sold in August were located in mature estates such as Bukit Merah, Kallang/Whampoa, Ang Mo Kio and the central area, while two each were in non-mature towns Woodlands and Hougang.
ERA Singapore key executive officer Eugene Lim said: “More buyers who intend to live in central areas see the urgency to purchase their units as the supply of existing units (without restrictions) will remain unchanged.”
The Straits Times
