A Bad Year for Property Prices in 2023?
Real estate prices (private and HDB) saw a meteoric rise in resale prices in 2021 – 2022 with double digit growth Y-O-Y, prompting the government to swoop in with a number of cooling measures.
Coupled with economic pressures such as an impending recession, increase in taxation (GST) and higher interest rates, the real estate market in 2023 is starting to look lack-luster and many are calling for a correction in property prices.
However, let us take a macro view of this situation by analyzing demand and supply drivers to make informed opinions.
HDB
The HDB resale market definitely captured headlines in 2021 – 2022 with new record numbers of million dollar transactions but like any rational citizen will know that this is unsustainable as the government has to keep public housing… affordable.
The past years run was mainly fueled by lack of supply due to Covid and increased demand from beneficiaries from the enbloc cycle.
However, with the construction industry recovering, we are starting to see over-subscription of BTO normalizing with the ramp up in supply of BTO launches.
Coupled with the double cooling measures last year, we are expected to see a more muted rise in resale prices across the board and possibly even stagnation due to the private market presenting more opportunities.
Private
The last enbloc and new launch cycle was in 2017 – 2018, which had resulted in lean pickings for the bumper crop of MOP BTOs in 2020-2021, thus directing the majority of the demand into the resale market, pushing prices significantly higher.
In 2023, the market will be flushed with supply from 17 new launches mainly in the desirable OCR and RCR regions plus an influx of supply coming from TOP projects.
This will in turn spill over to the resale market as sellers/investors look to rebalance their property portfolio, thus putting up more realistic asking prices.
Impending Recession & High Interest Rates
A common rejection that we hear often from clients will be the impending recession due to the rising interest rates and this is understandably so, friends in the tech sector and other MNCs have said that their companies are already freezing employment headcounts and cutting back on employee benefits,
However, new launches in 2022 (at new price points) also performed exceedingly well with more than 70% on launch day itself, such as AMO, Lentor Modern, Sky Eden, including the ECs such as Copen Grand and Tenet,
Plus, if past performance is anything to go by, high interest rate environments have generally presented buying opportunities.
Thus with all of the above, we foresee many opportunities for buyers who have managed to stay out of the market previously.
Moving Forward
Our plan for clients will always be the same, while there will always be opportunity in any market, always exercise prudence and patience. Any real estate move should always fulfill priorities that make sense to you and your family for at least 10 years.
Reach out to us for a discussion if you would like further clarity for your next real estate move. Otherwise, do empower yourself with more knowledge with our sharing on all real estate related posts.
