Public housing in Singapore is selling quickly and at high prices, an indication that the country’s already high-priced real estate market is rebounding from a pandemic-induced slowdown last year.
Last month, 23 government-subsidized units sold for at least $1 million Singapore, or about $743,000, a new monthly record in the sovereign nation, Bloomberg News reported. In January, there were about a dozen sales above that mark. The 36 total sales at the beginning of 2021 is a 350 percent increase from the same time last year.
Public housing prices grew at a significantly higher pace than private housing from around 2018 through the second quarter of last year.
Prices fell for public units on a quarterly basis in the fall, but growth rebounded in the fourth quarter and notched a 2.47 percent gain over the third quarter. Low interest rates and government property tax rebates helped spur the turnaround.
Overall, less pricey homes sold better than luxury properties last year. Some luxury developers dropped their prices by as much as 10 percent during 2020’s partial lockdowns.
As pricing indicates, Singapore’s public housing sector functions differently than similar housing in other countries. Eighty percent of the country’s residents live in subsidized housing and residents are typically wealthier than public housing residents abroad. Units typically return a profit for owners after five years of ownership, according to Bloomberg News. [Bloomberg News] — Dennis Lynch