Property Herald: Private Housing Sales Volume Contracted in 2Q 2025 Leading to Slower Price Growth

Summary

1. Private housing price increased at slower pace in 2Q 2025, but CCR price index increased the most among the three market segments. Buying opportunities in CCR contribute to faster price growth

2. The city-fringe RCR price declined as buyers house-hunt in CCR

3. Private housing transaction volume fell 33% in 2Q 2025

4. Homebuyers are expected to be more cautious and price-sensitive, which will put a lid on the growth of property prices and transactions. Even with a moderate pace of expansion, the private residential property index could still rise by 3% to 5% for the whole of 2025.

Introduction

The overall private housing price index increased 0.5% quarter-on-quarter (qoq) in 2Q 2025, which marks the second consecutive quarter of price growth, based on the flash estimate released today (1 JULY 2025). The 0.5% price growth in 2Q 2025 was slower compared to the 0.8% qoq increase in the first quarter of this year.

However, such single 3-month period of modest price growth could be followed by a large price jump of over 2% in subsequent quarter. This is emblematic of the volatile nature of the private housing price trend in the past five years, where a short period of rapid price growth would be followed by significantly slower prices increases or even a price drop in the subsequent quarters.

CCR price index increased the most among the three market segments

The high-end Core Central Region (CCR) private residential property index rose by 2.3% qiq, which is the fastest rate of price growth among the three market segments in 2Q 2025.

Since the introduction of the 60% Additional Buyer's Stamp Duty (ABSD) on foreign buyers of local private residential properties in April 2023, the CCR housing price trend has been more volatile than before. This is because the property cooling measures has stripped away much of the foreign demand and reduced the transaction volume in the CCR housing market. With a thinner transaction volume, the quarterly price trend would vary more widely than before.

For example, after the April 2023 property curbs, the CCR price index contracted in the second and third quarter of 2023. The price drop was followed by two quarter of robust price growth of 3.9% and 3.4% qoq in 4Q 2023 and 1Q 2024 respectively.

The same volatile pattern in the CCR price trend is repeated with two quarters of price decline in second and third quarter of 2024, which is followed by a 2.6% qoq price jump in 4Q 2024.

Private housing transaction volume fell in 2Q 2025 is partly due to the 32.9% drop in the private housing sales transaction volume in that quarter, based on currently available information. The sharpest fall in private housing sales volume occurred in the suburban Outside Central Region (OCR) where the number of private homes sold in the primary and secondary markets decreased by 49.3% qoq to 2,143 units.

Table 1: Number of private housing units transacted and rate of change

	Islandwide	CCR	RCR	OCR
1Q 2025	7,261	901	2,131	4,229
2Q 2025 (prelim)	4,875	641	2,091	2,143
Rate of change qoq	-32.9%	-28.95	-1.9%	-49.35

Source: MOGUL.sg Research

Note: The 2Q 2025 sales figures are based on preliminary data

Buying opportunities in CCR push up price index

Although the number of private homes transacted in the CCR contracted 32.9% qoq to a 641 units in 2Q 2025, the CCR price index increase by a healthy 2.3%. This could be because the weaker price growth of CCR properties in the preceding 1Q 2025 presented buying opportunites for homebuyers looking to snag properties in the prime housing districts. This would contribute to the more volatile CCR property price trend.

It is taking longer for CCR property sellers to find buyers. Hence home sellers would need to be more flexible in their price negotiation.

RCR price declined as buyers house-hunt in CCR

The volatile property price trend is also observed in the city-fringe RCR market. The RCR property price index fell 1.1% qoq in 2Q 2025, based on the flash estimate. This could be due to the shift in buyers' preference from city-fringe properties to the CCR market.

The prices of RCR properties has increase at a faster rate than those of CCR properties over the past one year since 2Q 2024, As a result, the price gap between the CCR and RCR properties has narrowed. This has presented buying opportunities in the CCR for homebuyers who were previous looking to buy homes in the city-fringe areas.

The shift in housing demand from the city-fringe to the prime housing segment contributed to the decline in the RCR price index, while the CCR price index increased in 2Q 2025.

Outlook

In the coming months, the prospect of slower ecenomic growth, global trade tensions and job insecurity in the private sector would keep the risk factor in the property market at an elevated level.

As a result, homebuyers will be more cautious and price sensitive, which will put a lid on the growth of property prices and transactions. Even with a moderate pace of expansion, the private residential property price index could still rise by 4% to 5% for the whole of 2025.

In the first half of 2025, an estimated 12,136 private housing units exchanged hands in the primary and secondary markets, which is 32.7% higher than sales volume in the corresponding 6-month period in 2024. However, the current cautious market sentiments could lead to about 20,000 to 21,000 private home sold in 2025, which is lower than the 21,950 units transacted in 2024.