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Luxury home prices in Singapore hardest hit among 35 cities: Knight Frank

Prime residential prices in S'pore down 12.6% for year to March; market tepid

By Prisca Ang

[email protected]

May 16, 2015


PRIME residential prices fell the most in Singapore among a pool of 35 cities in a study by Knight Frank.

According to the Prime Global Cities Index, prices of Singapore luxury homes plunged 12.6 per cent for the twelve months ended Mar 31, 2015. This was a far cry from Geneva and Zurich, which both experienced the largest dip in prices by 5 per cent after Singapore.

Compiled on a quarterly basis, the index tracks movement in the prices of prime property - the top 5 per cent of the wider housing market in each city - to help investors and developers monitor and compare the performance of prime residential prices across key global cities.

On the whole, the index climbed 3.9 per cent in the year to March 2015, with North American cities occupying three of the top four rankings for annual price growth.

Omitting cities in North America and Australia, the index would have recorded growth of 2.3 per cent instead.

Topping the chart was San Franciso, which saw the largest growth in luxury home prices at 14.3 per cent.

It was followed closely by Bengaluru, Miami and Vancouver, which experienced a 13.6, 12.2 and 11.8 per cent rise in luxury home prices respectively.

The disparity across world regions, however, is stark.

On average, prime prices in North America and Australia increased 8.4 per cent and 7.3 per cent respectively, while European cities saw prices slip by 0.2 per cent on average.

For the six months ended March, Singapore luxury home prices fell 7.3 per cent, surpassed only by Los Angeles which saw a 13.7 decline in prices.

For the three months ended, luxury home prices in Singapore dipped 3.7 per cent, with Los Angeles, Cape Town and New York experiencing steeper falls.

"Singapore's luxury residential market remains tepid for the first quarter of 2015, plagued by property cooling measures and persistent weakness in demand in the last two years," said head of research at Knight Frank Singapore Alice Tan.

Ms Tan added that, despite the lacklustre price performance, there have been a growing number of enquires from prospective buyers who are gradually turning their interest towards picking value buys.