3% dip in HDB resale flats sold last month
This was despite prices falling by 0.3 per cent; four-room flats made up bulk of units sold
Fewer Housing Board resale flats were sold last month than in November, with a 3 per cent drop, even as resale flat prices dipped slightly by 0.3 per cent in the same period.
In all, 1,858 HDB resale flats changed hands last month, real estate portal SRX Property said yesterday. Compared with a year ago, resale volume last month was up 29.6 per cent.
A total of 22,477 HDB resale transactions were made last year, 3.4 per cent higher than in 2018.
Four-room flats made up 41.3 per cent of the resale units sold last month, followed by three-room flats at 25.8 per cent and five-room flats at 23.3 per cent, while executive condominium flats made up 7.7 per cent. The rest sold were two-room flats.
Meanwhile, resale flat prices last month fell by 0.3 per cent over November's figures, although this was still 0.4 per cent higher than a year ago.
Compared with the peak in April 2013, prices were 14 per cent lower.
Prices in non-mature estates fell by 1.6 per cent year-on-year while those in mature estates fell by 1.4 per cent.
The most expensive resale flat last month was a four-room flat at The Pinnacle@Duxton, which was sold for $1.06 million. A five-room premium unit in Punggol was sold at $871,000, the most costly flat sold in a non-mature estate.
SRX forecasts that in the next three months, 4,785 flats will be put on the resale market as they approach their five-year minimum occupation period.
Its calculations show that resale flat buyers last month paid $1,000 more than what it estimates to be the market value for flats.
It was a $2,000 increase from November last year.
SRX data showed that the overall median transaction over X-value (TOX) was positive $1,000 last month.
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 only includes districts with more than 10 resale transactions.
The dip in the number of resale flats sold last month compared with November could be seasonal.
Ms Christine Sun, head of research and consultancy at OrangeTee and Tie, said: "Housing activities typically slow down in December since most potential buyers are still on holiday and many sellers prefer to hold back their listings to the start of the following year."
Ms Sun expected sentiment to improve, with a higher flat sales volume this year.
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