In its quarterly report published on Jan 24, HDB revealed that resale prices for public housing in Singapore have increased by 2.6% in the last three months of 2024, marking the 19th consecutive quarterly increase in the resale market. This brings the total price increase for the whole year to 9.7%. In comparison, resale prices only increased by 4.9% in 2023. The rise in prices during the fourth quarter was slightly lower than the 2.7% increase recorded in the third quarter. According to Mohan Sandrasegeran, head of research & data analytics at SRI, the strong growth in resale prices throughout 2024 can mostly be attributed to the limited supply of flats reaching their Minimum Occupation Period (MOP) during the year. This resulted in a tight supply, which put upward pressure on prices, especially for newer and larger flat types like five-room and executive units, which cater to the needs of growing families.Five-room flats saw the highest resale price growth among all flat types in the HDB market in the fourth quarter of 2024, increasing by 2.2% q-o-q to $754,097 on average. Four-room flats also saw an increase in resale prices, rising by 2.2% q-o-q to $652,544. The Central Area saw the highest increase in prices at 25.6% q-o-q, followed by Toa Payoh (12.1%), Tampines (6.9%), Bishan (6.7%) and Bedok (6.1%).A total of 285 HDB resale flats were sold for $1 million or more in the last three months of 2024, bringing the total number of million-dollar transactions for the year to 1,035. More than 90% of these transactions occurred in mature estates, with the highest number of million-dollar flats changing hands in the Kallang/Whampoa estate (156 units), followed by Toa Payoh (144 units) and Bukit Merah (135 units).However, the resale transaction volume for the whole of 2024 fell by 21.1% q-o-q from 8,142 units in the third quarter to 6,424 units in the fourth quarter. This decline can be attributed to seasonal factors such as the year-end holiday and festive season, as well as the lower interest rate environment, which may have encouraged some buyers to move to the private residential or Executive Condominium (EC) market. Some potential buyers may have also chosen to ballot for a flat in the latest Build-to-Order (BTO) sales exercise, which took place in October. The BTO sales exercise saw a record 15 projects comprising 8,573 flats being launched under the new location-based classification framework, with singles being allowed to purchase two-room Flexi BTO flats in all locations for the first time. Despite the decline in the fourth quarter, the overall resale transaction volume for 2024 increased by 8.4% y-o-y from 26,735 units to 28,986 units, marking the highest number of yearly resale transactions since 2021.During the year, the top five most popular HDB towns among buyers were Sengkang, Woodlands, Punggol, Tampines and Yishun, which accounted for around 35.9% of all HDB resale transactions. Looking ahead, around 6,976 flats are expected to reach the end of their MOP this year, a 41.6% decrease from the 11,952 flats in 2024. This is due to a relatively lower number of BTO flats completed in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. In response, HDB has announced plans to launch over 25,000 new flats across three BTO sales exercises in 2025, comprising 19,600 BTO flats and more than 5,500 flats under the Sale of Balance Flats (SBF) exercise. The first SBF exercise will be held concurrently with the upcoming BTO sales exercise in February, offering 5,000 BTO flats in Kallang/Whampoa, Queenstown, Woodlands, and Yishun, while the second SBF exercise will take place in May and the third in August. Around 4 in 10 of the 5,500 SBF flats being offered in February are already completed. Additionally, about 3,800 of the 19,600 BTO flats planned for launch in 2025 will be designated as Shorter Waiting Time (SWT) flats, offering wait times of less than three years for potential buyers. SRI’s Sandrasegeran forecasts that resale prices in the HDB market for 2025 could increase by 3.5% to 5.5%, with resale transaction volume ranging between 26,000 and 27,000. However, Huttons Asia’s Lee projects a more optimistic price increase of between 5% to 8% across the year.
