Singapore home price growth slowed last quarter as curbs on residential property at least temporarily reined in the nation’s surging real estate market.
Prices climbed 0.7% in the first quarter from the previous three months, when they jumped 5%, Urban Redevelopment Authority data showed Friday. That’s higher than the preliminary estimate of 0.4%.
The subdued growth comes after Singapore imposed property curbs in December to temper the housing market as prices jumped at the highest pace in over a decade in 2021. The city-state joins some of Asia-Pacific’s most expensive housing markets that are starting to cool after last year’s breakneck growth.
Singapore’s residential housing market has seen prices and demand rising even when the country recorded its worst recession. Sales have already rebounded in March after a subdued start to the year. And demand could hold up since there is appetite for new homes, especially among dwellers looking to upgrade from public to private units.
Though the rate of price growth may not escalate to the point it did in 2021, it may continue to inch up in the long term given the low supply of new housing stock, rising inflation and higher costs of construction and land prices, said Nicholas Mak, the Singapore-based head of research at APAC Realty Ltd unit ERA.
“The property curbs may cool the market in the short term but not so much in the long haul,” Mak said.
