Shoring up developers’ confidence is November’s new private home sales of 1,198 units (excluding executive condos), which is a 52% year-on-year rebound from 788 units in November last year, and about 2.5 times the sales in October (487 units), says Tricia Song, head of research for Singapore, Colliers International. “Sentiment had been more muted after new cooling measures were implemented in July 2018,” she points out.

( Crowd on launch weekend at Whistler Grand )

According to Colliers, it’s also the highest November sales in five years – since November 2013, when 1,271 new units were sold. Seven new projects were launched in November: 3 Cuscaden, Arena Residences, Kent Ridge Hill Residences, Belgravia Green, The Woodleigh Residences, Parc Esta, and Whistler Grand. Together, they accounted for 830 units or 69% of the new private home sales last month.

“The strong launches and sales take-up of private homes in November are significant as they occurred during the time of the year when market activities usually begin to wind down due to the start of the year-end holidays,” says Ong Teck Hui, senior director of research & consultancy at JLL. “They are in fact the strongest monthly launch and sales figures in 2018, disregarding the 2,239 units launched and 1,724 units sold in July which were an aberration due to the sudden launch of several projects to beat the start of the July cooling measures.”

Most property consultants are expecting the full year tally for new home sales to ring in at around 9,0000 units. The figure is about 15% below the 10,566 new units sold in 2017, says JLL’s Ong.

"Adapted from The Straits Times, 18 Dec 2018."