Property Herald: August’s private home sales is lowest in past 30 months

Introduction

Real estate developers in Singapore sold 153 private residential units in August 2026, which is the lowest monthly new housing sales volume in the past 30 months. In February 2024, developers also sold 153 private housing units in that month.

The low transaction volume comes on the back of a 87% in the number of private housing units launched in August. As a result, the number of private homes sold by developers in August is about one-fifth of the 731 housing units sold in the preceding month of July 2026.

The Ghost Month

The main reason for the drop in the number of new homes sold in August is that the residential property market needs some time to absorb the 3,776 private residential units that are launched and available for sale. Furthermore, property developers held back the release of new projects in preparation for their residential project launches in late September.

Although some may cite the Ghost Month, which ended on 10 September, as the key reason for the lower housing launch and sales volume as some people may believe that it is inauspicious to launch and buy real estate during the Ghost Month, we believe that real estate developers are not overly superstitious as they have launch new residential projects in the Ghost Months of past years.

To many market decision makers, the prospect of poor housing demand is scarier than spirits roaming after dark.

Housing sales from January to August

In the first eight months of this year, developers have sold 5,038 private homes, excluding EC units, which is 34.3% lower than the 7,669 private dwelling units sold in the corresponding period in 2025.

Last year was a bumper year for real estate developers as their sales soared to 10,815 private homes, setting a high bar that is proving to be hard to match this year.

An illustration of the low transaction volume in August is that the best-selling residential project only dispose of 18 units in the month, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Top ten best-selling residential projects in August 2026

Ranking	Project name	Street name	Land tenure	Market segment	No. of primary mkt units sold in August	Median price ($psf) in August 2026
1	Dunearn House	Dunearn Road	99 yrs	CCR	18	$3,008
2	Lentor Gardens Residences	Lentor Gardens	99 yrs	OCR	15	$2,367
3	Coastal Cabana	Jalan Loyang Besar	99 yrs	OCR	12	$1,830
4	The Sen	Jalan Jurong Kechil	99 yrs	RCR	12	$2,305
5	Union Square Residences	Havelock Road	99 yrs	RCR	10	$2,762
6	Hudson Place Residences	Media Circle	99 yrs	RCR	9	$2,640
7	Arina East Residences	Tanjong Rhu Road	Freehold	RCR	8	$2,718
8	Chuan Park	Lorong Chuan	99 yrs	OCR	6	$2,708
9	Narra Residences	Dairy Farm Walk	99 yrs	OCR	6	$2,129
10	Rivelle Tampines	Tampines Street 95	99 yrs	OCR	6	$1,944

Source: Mogul.sg Research

Market outlook

Although there are 12 residential projects with some 5,200 units that could potentially be launched in the coming months, we believe that developers would only release about half of these new residential projects before Christmas, because the current market sentiments does not support the demand to absorb a housing supply of over 5,000 units in the remaining months of this year.

The private housing market is facing a growing headwind of rising borrowing costs and uncertain job market, which could dampen demand in the coming months.

On the positive side, the government will be taking in more new immigrants and minting more new Singapore citizens among the permanent residents in the next few years, which will raise both buying and leasing demand for residential properties.

Based on the above factors, developers could sell about 7,000 to 8,000 private homes in 2026 if the upcoming new launches are reasonably priced.