Singaporean home transactions reached a record peak in the third quarter of 2020, accounting for 80.7 percent of overall non-landed home buyers with 4,754 sales, according to an OrangeTee and Tie survey.
The number is 82.5 percent, the largest proportion since the first quarter of 2009.
Meanwhile, in Q3 2020, there are 901 non-landed homes were bought by Singapore Permanent Residents (PRs), while 215 units were purchased by non-PRs.
The biggest international buyer continued to be Mainland Chinese, buying 225 non-landed homes in Q3 2020. In second position were buyers from Malaysia, purchasing 122 units, followed by those from India and Indonesia, buying 113 units and 42 units, respectively.
Buyers were listed as “international unidentified” for another 421 units.
Christine Sun, Head of Analysis and Consulting at OrangeTee and Tie, said that during the quarter under examination, most buyers purchased homes below $2 million.
She announced that 60% of Chinese mainland buyers were snapping homes varying from $500,000 to $1.5 million. Nearly 20 percent went over $3 million for pricier houses, 19 of which were over $5 million.
Most mainland Chinese investors have bought homes valued below $18,000 per sq m or $1,672 psf. As the most common district among Mainland Chinese buyers, District 19 emerged, followed by Districts 5, 10 and 14.
In Q3 2020, Sun also noticed that more investors were buying up bigger condominiums.
URA Realis data shows that at 1,200 sq ft and above, the amount of big condos grew 248.1 percent quarter-on – quarter and 32.0 percent year-on-year to 1,591 units in Q3 2020, more than the average of 1,040 units for two years.
In reality, across all market categories, the rise in sales of larger condos can be identified. In the remainder of the Central Area (RCR), the number of larger condos grew 283.5 percent quarter-on – quarter to 487 units, 254.1 percent quarter-on – quarter to 772 units in the Outside Central Region (OCR) and 196.4 percent quarter-on-quarter to 332 units in the Core Central Region (CCR).
Sun suggested that they have also seen a rise in landed property transactions.
A total of 598 landed homes changed hands in Q3 2020, more than double the 212 in the previous year. This is also the best quarter since the selling in Q2 2018 of 775 landed properties.
“She related the rise to more acute knowledge of the need to purchase a larger unit” to set up a designated workplace or tiny home office.
“At the present ‘lower price point,’ certain smart investors will take the chance to buy a larger home when rates are sure to increase after the pandemic or when a vaccine is discovered,” she said.
