Home prices are likely to drop in Q2 as more willing sellers enter the market, according to PropertyGuru’s Property Market Index Q2 2020, which assesses the impact of Covid-19 and the circuit breaker in Singapore. Interestingly, despite the economic impacts of both, growth can be still found in a few districts.

The report also looks at the best and worst-performing districts, and highlights new launches that are likely to continue to outperform the general market due to their exceptional attributes. Here are the main key points:

Asking prices in the non-landed private residential sector continue to see softening as prices trend downward for a third successive quarter. The significantly higher number of listings found on PropertyGuru this quarter signals higher downside price pressure and is likely to continue for another quarter, as Q2 2020 bears the brunt of at least two months of circuit breakers.

Six of the top ten best-selling uncompleted condominiums in the quarter were launched prior to 2019. Developments within a leisurely 10-minute walk to MRT stations continue to be in high demand, with six out of 10 projects embodying this attribute.

Buyers preference for larger-scale developments can also be observed as seven out of 10 projects exceed a thousand units per development. Moving forward, developers are likely to have an increased risk tolerance for larger plots of land as it is proven that demand is healthy and present.

The top five performing districts from the first quarter are made up of 3 Outside Central Region and 2 Rest of Central Region districts, while the bottom 5 performing districts consist of 3 from the Core Central Region and 2 from the Outside Central Region district. This is in line with historical trends of the Asian and Global Financial Crisis where the Core Central Region districts typically contracted the most.