Home sales in Singapore and China showed improvement last month, but for opposite reasons.
Singapore home sales surged to the highest monthly total for nearly four years after the government rolled back some property curbs following a three-year slide in prices.
Developers sold 1,780 units last month, the most in a month since June 2013 and more than double the 843 sold in the same period last year, according to data released yesterday by the Singaporean Urban Redevelopment Authority.
A total of 1,527 units were offered, almost three times the 550 units offered in February.
The largest sales came at Grandeur Park Residences in the city-state’s east, which sold 484 units of the 720 put up for sale, and Park Place Residences at PLQ, which sold all 217 units it placed on the market last month.
The government last month moved to relax a raft of measures to cool prices — steps it began implementing in 2009, with some of the strictest restrictions being imposed in 2013. Home prices fell 3 percent last year and have dropped for 14 straight quarters, the longest slide since the data were first published in 1975.
An index tracking private residential prices fell 0.5 percent in the three months ended last month from the previous quarter, according to preliminary data from the authority.
Home values have dropped 11.7 percent from their 2013 peak.
Chinese home sales also remained resilient last month, as buyers rushed into the market before a tightening of curbs.
The value of new homes sold rose 18 percent to 1 trillion yuan (US$145 billion) last month from a year earlier, according to Bloomberg calculations based on data released yesterday by the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics.
The increase compares with a 23 percent surge in the first two months of the year.
Policymakers are seeking to clear a glut of unsold homes in smaller urban centers, while pledging to enforce strict curbs in most first and second-tier cities to prevent a housing bubble.
In a month when at least 64 cities announced new or stricter property restrictions, buyers flocked into the market because of fears they would be ruled ineligible for future purchases.
New medium and long-term loans to households, made up mostly of mortgages, picked up again last month to 450.3 billion yuan, according to official data released on Friday last week.
Investment in real-estate development gained 9.4 percent last month from a year earlier, up from 8.9 percent in the first two months, according to Bloomberg calculations.
Strong property investment helped China’s fixed-asset investment excluding rural areas expand 9.2 percent in the first quarter, accelerating from 8.1 percent growth last year.
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