Private home prices fall 4% in 2014: URA
Prices of private residential property dropped 4.0 percent for the whole of 2014, revealed flash estimates of the URA price index.
In the last quarter of 2014, prices declined by 1.0 percent, higher than the 0.7 percent decrease in the previous three-month period. In a statement, URA said this is the fifth consecutive quarter of price falls.
Prices of non-landed private homes declined in all market segments.
In the Core Central Region (CCR), prices fell 0.9 percent, higher than the 0.8 percent decline in the previous quarter.
Over in the Rest of Central Region (RCR), prices were down 1.2 percent, higher than the previous 0.4 percent dip.
As for the Outside Central Region (OCR), prices dropped 0.9 percent, higher than the 0.3 percent decrease in the quarter before.
Prices of landed properties fell 1.1 percent compared to the 1.8 percent slide previously.
In the last 12 months, prices in the CCR, RCR and OCR fell by 4.1 percent, 5.2 percent and 2.2 percent respectively. Landed properties registered a 5.2 percent drop in the year.
The full real estate statistics for Q4 2014 will be released in the coming weeks, said URA.
HDB resale prices drop 1.4% in Q4
Prices of resale HDB flats declined 1.4 percent in Q4 2014 from the previous quarter, according to flash estimates from the housing board.
Although this is lower than the 1.7 percent decline seen in Q3 2014, HDB data shows a fifth consecutive quarter of price falls.
Notably, HDB adopted the Stratified Hedonic Regression method this time to compute the resale price index (RPI).
Explaining why the new calculation method was used, HDB said: “The Stratified Hedonic Regression method will control for variations in flat attributes of the resale flats transacted, thus better reflecting price changes over time. This allows the index to continue serving its purpose of providing timely and reliable information on resale market movements.”
It added the previous RPI from Q1 1990 to Q3 2014 was re-scaled to the new base period of Q1 2009, but the quarterly percentage changes remain unchanged.
More detailed public housing data will be released later this month.
Meanwhile, HDB plans to launch four Build-To-Order (BTO) exercises in 2015, offering a total of 16,900 flats. This includes BTO flats in new areas such as Bidadari and Punggol Northshore.
The first BTO exercise will be held in February where about 3,940 flats in Bukit Batok, Geylang and Hougang will be launched.
Romesh Navaratnarajah
*The author is the Singapore editor of Property Guru group. To contact him about this or other stories, email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg.