Private home prices up 2.3% in Q4; growth for 2024 slows to 3.9%

Private residential property prices rose 2.3 per cent in the fourth quarter, due primarily to a last-minute surge in new home sales and wealth effect from recovering global stock markets, reversing a modest drop in the third quarter.

- Grace Leong

The latest data, from flash estimates released by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) on Jan 2, follows a 0.7 per cent drop in the third quarter and a 0.9 per cent gain in the second quarter.

For 2024, the private residential price index still grew at a slower pace of 3.9 per cent, compared with a 6.8 per cent gain in 2023 and an 8.6 per cent jump in 2022. This is the slowest annual price growth recorded since 2020, when prices increased by just 2.2 per cent during the Covid-19 pandemic, suggesting buyer caution.

Overall, private property price growth tracked economic growth in 2024, with the fourth-quarter gross domestic product advance estimate registering a 4.3 per cent expansion year on year in the fourth quarter and taking full-year economic growth to 4 per cent, a pick-up from 1.1 per cent in 2023.

"With home prices still aligned with economic fundamentals, we believe it is premature for more cooling measures," said Ms Tricia Song, CBRE's research head for Singapore and South-east Asia.

PropNex chief executive Ismail Gafoor called the fourth quarter's performance "impressive - one that single-handedly pulled up new private home sales in a year when sentiment had been relatively lacklustre".

New home sales, excluding executive condominiums (ECs), jumped to 3,398 units in the fourth quarter, nearly triple the third quarter's 1,160 units, and above the five-year quarterly average of 2,101 units, according to CBRE.