Consultants see no glut in PTE homes & 27% new sales R shoeboxes

Consultants see no glut in private homes

Business Times: Sat, Apr 28

SOME property consultants are starting to switch their views on the private housing market from an oversupply story to one of potential shortage, especially in the hot-selling Outside Central Region (OCR), based on the latest Urban Redevelopment Authority supply and demand numbers. Even as official figures show that developers launched and sold a record number of private homes in the first quarter, URA noted that this was fuelled by small apartments that developers have been pushing to keep lump-sum prices affordable. The URA's benchmark private home price index fell 0.1 per cent quarter-on-quarter (qoq) in Q1, matching its earlier flash estimate. However, it was the industrial property market that outperformed every other segment of private real estate space, both in terms of price and rental. The price index for industrial property rebounded 7.3 per cent from the previous quarter. This, after slowing down to a 4 per cent rise in Q4 2011 from a 7 per cent increase in Q3 2011. The office price index was unchanged while the shop price index was up 0.2 per cent. Likewise, URA's All Industrial rental index rose 1.8 per cent in Q1, surpassing gains of 0.3 per cent for the private residential rental index and 0.1 per cent for the shop rental index and a 0.5 per cent dip in the office rent index. Developers launched 6,903 private homes in Q1, up 68.2 per cent. Their sales rose 81.1 per cent to 6,526 units. About four-fifths, or 5,275 units, of the sales came from OCR, where mass-market homes are located. Credo Real Estate executive director Ong Teck Hui pointed out that the number of units developers sold in OCR in Q1 was about half the 10,374 they sold in the same region last year. Meanwhile, the stock of homes that have yet to be sold in uncompleted projects with planning approvals (either provisional or written permission) fell from 39,184 at end-Q4 to 36,552 at end-Q1, pulled down by a 15.8 per cent drop in OCR to 16,928. "What we need to watch out for is whether the build-up in potential supply is too slow relative to market conditions especially in OCR," said Mr Ong. Savills Singapore research head Alan Cheong noted that the sales of 6,526 units works out to 26,104 on an annualised basis. "At this rate, initial fears of having 47,819 yet-to-be-sold units (including those in projects without planning approvals) in the pipeline causing an oversupply become passe, reversing market watchers' perception of a gross oversupply to gross undersupply situation." URA's sub-index for non-landed private home prices in OCR rose 1.1 per cent in Q1, suggesting that the uptrend could continue. In contrast, indices for Core Central Region (CCR), which includes the choicest residential locations, and Rest of Central Region (RCR) each slipped 0.6 per cent. DTZ Asia-Pacific research head Chua Chor Hoon expects OCR to remain the price outperformer, either staying flat or easing up to 5 per cent for the full year, while CCR will be worst hit, with a 5-10 per cent slide. An interesting trend is that in all three regions, prices of uncompleted non-landed homes were stronger than completed properties, reflecting weaker prices in the resale market. Although the total number of resales of completed private homes slipped 29.4 per cent to 1,906 in Q1, this was due to weak numbers in January and February that were partly offset by a significant recovery in March. "As prices of completed properties in CCR and RCR have fallen in Q1, buyers are moving back to the secondary market where they see more value for money," says DTZ's Ms Chua. Subsales - secondary market deals of uncompleted properties and often a proxy for speculative activity - halved from 632 in Q4 to 317 in Q1. Their share of total private home transactions slipped to just 3.6 per cent for Q1, following the steep seller's stamp duty (SSD) rates introduced in January 2011 to deter short-term trading of private homes. This has shrunk the pool of buyers who can offload their units in the subsale market without incurring the SSD. At the same time, those thinking of buying a property these days are more likely to head for a new developer launch. This allows them to stretch the purchase payment over the three years or more that it takes for the project to be completed and by which time they could sell their property without having to incur any SSD or they could chalk up just a small SSD. The most recent property cooling measure - the additional buyer's stamp duty, which is as high as 10 per cent for foreigners who buy any residential property here - introduced on Dec 8, seems to have had its desired effect. URA figures show that foreigners' share of uncompleted homes sold by developers dived to 6.2 per cent in Q1 from 17 per cent in Q4. With speculative demand and foreign buying curbed, the main bugbear for the authorities now is exuberant developer sales, analysts say. URA figures show that 27 per cent of the 6,526 units (including 68 completed units) comprised small units (of 50 square metres or below), up from 15 per cent in Q4. The 27 per cent is probably an all-time record. Units costing up to $750,000 made up 42 per cent of developers' Q1 sales, up from 25 per cent in Q4 and the highest since 52 per cent in Q1 2009, when property buying fervour recovered after the global financial crisis. Reports have shown that the bulk of small apartment buyers have HDB addresses and are hence unlikely to be considering upgrading to a shoebox unit, suggesting some exuberance in investment demand for small units - although some may be buying for their children. Source: Business Times Shoebox units make up 27% of new sales 2012-04-27 23:21:42   Straits Times: Sat, Apr 28 THOSE tiny homes known as shoebox apartments now account for more than a quarter of private home sales, a big jump from about 15 per cent late last year. The latest figures, for the first quarter of the year, show that 1,764 shoebox units were sold, representing about 27 per cent of the 6,526 private home sales. These are small homes of about 540 sq ft or less. As recently as the fourth quarter of 2011, shoebox flats accounted for slightly over 15 per cent of the total new sales. This is the first time the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), which released its quarterly real estate statistics yesterday, has made available data on shoebox units in the report. It included statistics from as early as 2007, when such small units constituted less than 5 per cent of private home sales. Across the market, 42 per cent of new sales in the quarter were priced below $750,000. Many of these units are in the suburbs, with a hefty 82 per cent of all new unit sales outside the central region. Mr Lee Sze Teck, senior manager of research and consultancy at Dennis Wee Group, said the figures indicate that developers are launching more small units - one- and two-bedders - for sale. 'The increase in prices of uncompleted non-landed properties is probably due to smaller units sold with higher per square foot prices,' he said. The median size of units in new mass market launches has dived from 980 sq ft in the second quarter of 2011, to 710 sq ft in the first quarter of this year. Median per sq ft (psf) price in the first quarter was $1,102, while it was $949 in the second quarter of last year. Property consultants said that HDB upgraders are the main buyers of shoebox units, which tend to be cheaper in terms of the overall price. Some experts suggested that the release of shoebox statistics could mean the Government is scrutinising this sector. SLP International Property Consultancy's head of research Nicholas Mak said the Government may look at limiting the number of shoebox units in some areas. 'This could result in cooling the property market and moderating price increases.' Another way to curb rising demand would be to give limited financing to investors who buy shoebox flats. 'Going by the latest figures, one in four home buyers are getting shoebox units... how many people do you know live in one? The Government might introduce measures to prevent construction of not so useful space, and instead build bigger units which are more usable for families,' Mr Mak said. AMANDA TAN Source: The Straits Times 新私宅价微跌销量却暴增 首季售出新单位破2009年以来纪录 （2012-04-28） 早报导读    发展商在今年第一季卖出的“鞋盒公寓”也刷新历史新高，创下1764个单位的纪录。 吴慧敏　报道 [e-mail] 　　本地私宅价格终于在今年第一季扭转风向，微跌了0.1％，但发展商卖出的新私宅单位却暴涨83％至6458个单位，改写了2009年以来的最高季度销售纪录。 　　发展商在今年第一季卖出的“鞋盒公寓”（shoe-box apartments）也刷新历史新高，创下1764个单位的纪录。 　　执行共管公寓（Executive Condominium）的销量也异常旺热，今年第一季卖出了1557个单位。这是执行共管公寓自2010年第四季重新推出以来，销量最高的一个季度。 　　昨天出炉的房地产价格数据引起市场人士再次热议，虽然价格已经下跌，但市场上的一些热气是否会迫使政府再次出手降温？ 　　欣乐国际执行董事麦俊荣说：“政府可能采取行动来抑制这股投资需求。”他认为，其中一个可能性是限制发展商在一个项目中所建造的鞋盒公寓比例。 　　鞋盒公寓指的是面积不超过50平方公尺，即538平方英尺的公寓。　　 发展商在今年第一季卖出的1764个鞋盒公寓，占了整个季度销量的27％。去年第四季，发展商则总共卖出3525个新私宅单位，其中558个属于鞋盒公寓，只占了总销售量的16％。 　　市区重建局的数据也显示，市场上的买气集中在单位价不超过75万元、门槛比较低的公寓上。 　　发展商在今年第一季卖出了2766个售价不到75万元的新公寓，占了总销售量的42％。去年第四季，这类公寓的成交量只有911个，相等于26％的销售量。 　　市场的买气也很明显地集中在郊外地区，核心中央区以外（OCR）的第一季销售量达到5268个，相等于82％的销售量。去年第四季只有74％（2600个单位）的买气集中在核心中央区以外。 　　戴德梁行（DTZ）研究部主管蔡楚芬指出，政府收紧印花税条例后，外国买家的购买热度已明显退却。去年第四季，购买未完工新私宅单位的外国人比率高达17％，但今年第一季却减少至6.2％。 二手市场异常冷清 　 　跟新项目比较，二手市场也显得异常冷清。今年第一季卖出的已完工二手单位（resale units）连续第三个季度减少，只有1906个，这是自2009年第一季以来的最低水平。这占了今年第一季总私宅成交量的21.8％，是市建局自 1999年整理有关数据以来最低的一个水平。 　　未完工的二手单位（楼花）成交量则由去年第四季的9.1％，减少至3.6％。