Singapore April condo resale volume tumbles 57.3%: SRX Property

309 units resold, against 723 units in March; outside central region accounts for bulk of volume at 58.1%

Wed, May 13, 2020

Vivienne Tay


RESALE volume for condominiums in Singapore tumbled 57.3 per cent in April to 309 units resold, compared with 723 units in March, according to flash estimates from real estate portal SRX Property released on Tuesday.

Year on year, resale volume was 62.2 per cent lower and 66.8 per cent lower than the five-year average volumes for the month of April.

The outside central region (OCR) accounted for the bulk of resale volume at 58.1 per cent, followed by 23.2 per cent from the rest of central region (RCR) and 18.8 per cent from the core central region (CCR).

Nonetheless, Christine Sun, head of research and consultancy at OrangeTee & Tie, called April's resale volume numbers encouraging, given that no house viewings were conducted during this period.

Although April's volume is low compared with recent months, it is still not the lowest reached, with January 2015 recording the lowest volume at 305 units, according to URA Realis data.

Overall prices in April were down 0.2 per cent from March 2020 and down 0.7 per cent from a year ago. By region, the RCR saw prices dip 0.1 per cent, while OCR resale prices dropped 1.6 per cent. CCR prices, however, rose 0.4 per cent.

Nicholas Mak, head of research and consultancy at ERA Realty, said that property prices are still resilient partly due to thin trading volume and confidence that economic assistance from the government could lessen the negative Covid-19-related impact.

The highest transacted price for a resale unit in April went to an apartment at Ardmore Park, which went for S$27.7 million. In the RCR, the highest transacted price was S$3.8 million for a unit at The Waterside. As for the OCR, the highest transacted price was for a S$2.7 million unit at Hillion Residences.

The overall transaction over X-value (TOX) in April was negative S$11,000, compared with negative S$2,000 for March 2020.

TOX measures how much a buyer is overpaying (positive value) or underpaying (negative value) for a property based on SRX's computer-generated market value. The data includes only districts with more than 10 resale transactions.

The highest median TOX was recorded in District 26 (Mandai, Upper Thomson) at positive S$52,000, followed by District 1 (Boat Quay, Raffles Place and Marina) at positive S$5,000.

District 10 (Tanglin, Holland and Bukit Timah) posted the lowest median TOX at negative S$50,000, followed by District 20 (Ang Mo Kio, Bishan, Thomson) at negative S$35,000.