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Developers bid more aggressively amid signs of housing market rebound
With buyers snapping up units at projects such as Seaside Residences (pictured), new home sales more than doubled from the same month last year.
The spike in new home sales following an easing of property cooling measures saw more developers aggressively bidding at land auctions in Singapore, reported Bloomberg.
Cushman & Wakefield revealed that the number of developers bidding per land tender rose from 8.3 in the second half of 2005 to 13.3 during the first four months of 2017 – paying a 29 percent premium on average or the highest level in at least five years.
A land auction held last month drew a record 24 bidders, amid growing demand from Malaysian and Chinese developers.
“Sentiment has changed,” said Frasers Centrepoint chief executive officer Christopher Tang. “The general sense is that the market has bottomed out and like many of the developers in Singapore we are a bit landbank-starved — we are keen to build our land bank.”
After surging to its highest level in March in almost four years, new homes sales more than doubled last month from the previous year, with buyers snapping up units at projects such as the Seaside Residences condominium.
“There has been a considerable lift in market sentiment,” said Desmond Sim, research head for Singapore and South East Asia at CBRE. “Buyers are more prepared to make a purchase, in view of prices possibly bottoming.”
However, the scale of any comeback may be restricted by government efforts to prevent renewed overheating of a property market that peaked in 2013. In fact, the government left most of the restrictions in place even as it tweaked some of the cooling measures in March.
This article was edited by Denise Djong.
