December 2012 prvate home sales: So is this what prompted the latest cooling measures?

Demand for new private residential property in Singapore rebounded in December 2012, following a sharp decline in the previous month.

According to the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), 1,410 units of new private homes were sold last month, up by about 30% from November's sales of 1,087 units.

Including executive condominiums (EC), the sale of new homes came in at 2,259 units in December.

The best selling project last month was Echelon located at Alexandra View with 331 units changing hands.

In the EC segment, the top performer was CityLife@Tampines which sold 452 units in December.

URA's data showed that 263 units of new private homes located in the core central region were sold during the month.

Meanwhile, developers moved 527 new units in the city fringe and 620 units in the suburban areas.

For the whole of 2012, 22,684 units of new homes, excluding executive condominiums were sold - topping 2010's record high of 16,292 units.

It is also higher than the 16,027 units sold in 2011.

Meanwhile, analysts expect the cooling measures announced last week to have an impact on new home sales in January.

Donald Han, special advisor at HSR, said: "Looking at the numbers, I would expect January to have about 700 to 1000 units being sold -- less activity until the market finds its footing.

"But from March onwards, we could see transaction volume coming back to a normalcy, and normalcy would translate to about 1,600, or 1,650 of new home sales being sold every month for the rest of 2013."

Source: Channel News Asia