Steady buyer demand seen supporting stream of private home launches in H2 2025
[SINGAPORE] A bumper crop of private homes is set to hit the market in the second half of 2025, with projects large and small putting more than 9,000 units in the pipeline for the rest of the year.
A Citi Research note released on May 15 indicated that 35 upcoming projects, including landed homes and executive condominiums, could be launched over the rest of the year, yielding a total of 9,339 units. A total of 5,320 new condos were marketed in 10 launches since January.
Of the launches being lined up, 19 projects offering 5,487 units are in the Core Central Region (CCR), 10 launches with 1,157 units are in the Rest of Central Region (RCR), and six Outside Central Region (OCR) projects will launch 2,695 units, Citi's research found.
Demand is expected to hold steady, though take-up is likely to vary across projects, Lee Nai Jia, head of real estate intelligence at PropertyGuru, told The Business Times.
Buyers are becoming more selective, he said, and cited proximity to schools, MRT stations and daily amenities as being among the top priorities among home buyers.
With macroeconomic uncertainty stemming from US President Donald Trump's tariffs, buyer sentiment has turned more cautious. Lee noted that following the tariff announcements, users on the PropertyGuru listings platform have gravitated towards private homes priced at around S$1.9 million, and HDB resale flats at about S$740,000.
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'They have reached a kind of resistance level, and we should see that tension between buyer and seller expectations play out in the coming months,' he said.
'Transaction activity will probably still go on, but slow down a bit in the second and third quarters, depending on Trump's policies.'
Lee, referring to the bulk of launches expected in the CCR in the second half, said their locations were generally attractive, but that those that lacked connectivity or nearby amenities may face slower sales.
Developments coming up in the Central Business District area are expected to encounter relatively subdued demand, given the lack of amenities and fewer foreign buyers snapping up units following the imposing of stricter cooling measures.
The government doubled the Additional Buyer's Stamp Duty (ABSD) for foreigners buying residential property to 60 per cent in April 2023, knocking the wind out of the high-end market.
BT previously reported that there were only 14 foreign buyers of new condos in the CCR in Q1 this year, a significant tumble from the 92 in Q1 2023, before the ABSD hike.
Including resales and sub-sales in the CCR, foreigners made up 4 per cent of the total of 733 transactions in Q1 2025. In Q1 2023, this group made up nearly 16 per cent of buyers in 1,027 transactions.
Still, Lee reckons that slower projects may gain traction over time as surrounding neighbourhoods evolve through rezonings, or the launch of adjacent developments.
Huttons Asia's chief executive Mark Yip observed that the market has 'settled into a more relaxed pace' in Q2, after a sharp increase in activities in the luxury non-landed homes market in Q1.
Based on caveats lodged, 72 luxury non-landed units were sold in Q1, the highest in two years. This is 63.6 per cent higher quarter on quarter, and 35.8 per cent higher year on year, Huttons' data showed.
The total value of luxury non-landed homes sold in Q1 was S$611.4 million, 64.2 per cent higher than in Q4 2024 and 59.9 per cent higher on year.
'Some buyers are making opportunistic offers, but there is little sign of distress in the resale luxury non-landed market at the moment,' said Yip in the quarterly Huttons Prestige Report released on May 14.
ETC (formerly Edmund Tie & Company) expects residential prices to moderate. 'Overall housing supply rises with the ramp-up of Government Land Sales (GLS) – a trend that should help support market stability and sustain healthy transaction activity.'
That said, PropertyGuru's Lee expects developers to be more selective when bidding for sites, as material and labour costs may rise and sales slow; he cited the recent GLS tender for Parcel B in Media Circle, which had no takers.
In recent months, new home sales have slowed from the quickening that the market underwent in the last quarter of 2024 and in Q1 of this year.
Citi analyst Brandon Lee also expects lower land bids in the near future. He wrote in a report that the slower home sales 'could result in more attractive land prices for eight upcoming government tenders from May to September'.
Apart from site-specific factors, developers are also cautious on the back of the US tariff announcements. The tender for the Media Circle plot which drew no takers was the first to close since the US announced its import tariff hikes.
Developers were also said to be discouraged by the lacklustre performance this month at the nearby Bloomsbury Residences, which sold just a quarter of its total 358 units at an average price of S$2,474 per square foot.
The cool response to Bloomsbury Residence aside, a further supply of about 325 private homes is slated to come up on the nearby Media Circle Parcel A, which was awarded in March to another Qingjian-Forsea-led tie-up at S$1,037 psf per plot ratio.
PropertyGuru's Lee expects developers to maintain their selling prices. 'If they price (the units) overly high – especially with more launches coming in the second half – they risk pricing out consumers or the sector.
'If they lower their prices, they are also in danger: when costs increase, their margins may be further reduced.'
Citi projects average monthly primary sales to hover at between 500 and 700 units, supported by soft mortgage rates. This is a decline from the 1,000-to-1,600-unit level in January and February.
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