Leading Indian business daily asks if SG housing market is ‘turning into a magnet for foreigners’

SINGAPORE: Citing the latest Singapore private home sales data, The Economic Times, India’s leading English-language business daily newspaper, asked in a September 15 (Monday) article if the city-state’s housing market is “turning into a magnet for foreigners”.

In August, around 2,142 private home units were sold, the highest number since November 2024, when nearly 2,600 units changed hands. The nine-month high is due to five new projects launched last month, which made up 88 per cent of the transactions.

The new projects, River Green, Promenade Peak, Canberra Crescent Residences, Springleaf Residence, and Artisan 8, accounted for 1,894 units sold. Springleaf Residence, located at Upper Thomson Road, was the biggest winner, having sold 884 out of 941 units at a median price of S$2,166 per square foot.

August’s private home sales were indeed impressive, especially since only 940 units were sold in July, which means a 128 per cent uptick month-on-month. Year-on-year, the numbers are even more impressive, since only 211 units changed hands in August 2024.

“In August, local buyers and the city-state’s burgeoning wealthy foreign residents flocked to both suburban and prime projects in River Valley, an expatriate-friendly district close to the city centre,” noted the Economic Times.

It also cited a report from Bloomberg, which attributed the high number of sales to several factors, including smaller borrowing costs and an intergenerational transfer of wealth. It also noted that a “key benchmark for interest rates has halved since the start of the year,” which means that more affordable financing for buyers.

Official data shows that people are buying smaller units with reasonable prices, since most of the private home sales last month involved units costing S$1 million to S$2 million. This price range is reportedly the “sweet spot” for private home buyers, particularly when seen in the light of an increasing number of Housing & Development Board (HDB) flats up for resale in the same price bracket.

“Based on current trends, we expect new private home sales to cross between 9,000 and 10,000 units for the full year of 2025,” Mohan Sandrasegeran, the head of research and data analytics at SRI, said.

Bloomberg pointed out that the higher sales numbers in August may cause a rise in the price of private homes, raising concerns among Singaporeans about housing affordability, a key issue in recent years. /TISG

Read also: New private home sales surge over tenfold due to strong suburban demand