The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) has just released its flash estimates for the 2nd Quarter private residential property.

From this, we can learn that private home prices have continued to rise since the last Quarter. In fact, private home prices has increased 0.9% since the 1st Quarter of 2021, marking the market's fifth consecutive quarterly rise.

Overall, the private residential property index increased from 162.2 in the 1st Quarter to 163.7 in this Quarter, tallying a total increase of 1.5 in just 3 months. 

Prices of landed properties shown a rise of 0.8% in this quarter while non-landed properties 0.9%. Of which non-landed properties in the CCR increased by 0.6%, RCR increased by 0.3% and OCR showing the highest increment of 1.8%.

COMPARISON OF PROPERTY PRICE INDEX FOR 1ST QUARTER 2021 AND 2ND QUARTER 2021

(Source: URA Media Release) 

Find out where are all the million dollar HDB flats have been transacted at.

Have you ever seen one of those articles that brag about HDB flats being sold for over a million dollars? It’s pretty hard to believe, but it’s true. If you don’t already know, HDB resale flat prices have increased tremendously last year. You can read all about the increasing HDB resale prices in our recent article here.

But even with its high prices, the demand is still high and people are still buying flats at these exorbitant prices. Being the kpos that we are, we have done a little snooping to find out which exact flats are the ones people are snapping up above the one million dollar mark. 

To get this information, we have used our new and very much free HDB Transacted Prices tool, which is available right here on our website. With this tool, you are able to look around at all the HDB transactions that have taken place from 2015 onwards, if you would need any earlier transactions, you may email us at sales@auctionjia.com.sg and we can get that information personally to you. 

So for example, maybe your best friend has just bought a resale flat in Punggol. By using this tool, you can find out exactly how much he/she bought that flat at. Simply key in the town, street, block number and HDB type, and you will find the data you need.

Now let’s get back to the million dollar transacted HDB flats. As there more than 360 flats that have been transacted over one million dollars, we will not be able to show you all of them in this article. However, you will still be able to access this data when you use our tool mentioned above. Instead we have gathered the top 30 highest transacted HDB flats in the table below, so you can get a general idea of the prices HDB flats can soar up to. As you can see, the highest recorded sale price was $1,258,000 at Cantonment Road just September last year.

In a secondary table, we have also we have included data showing where the hot spots for million dollar flats are, meaning where million dollar flats have been transacted at and how many in each area. 

Many Singaporeans turn to resale HDB flats for many reasons. Some make use of the many grants to purchase resale homes as their first flats and some use it to upgrade to bigger flats as a result of selling and profiting from their BTO flats. No matter the reason, it is safe to say that resale HDB flats play a major part in the property market and in our lives as home buyers. 

So that begs the question. Are HDB resale prices rising?

(Image Source: HDB)

Yes, they are. Just last year, we saw an increase in HDB prices of 5%. Its highest climb since 2012 where it rose to 6.5%. This can be seen in the chart above. In some of our previous articles, you would have seen that the private property market has remained resilient through the Covid-19 outbreak and have even seen an increase in resale prices. This too can be said for the resale HDB market. 

In 2020, we saw a sale of 24,748 units in the resale market, a close match up to the 25,094 units that were sold in 2012. 

According to analysts, this is due to the continued increase in demand and prices. With this, they foresee the HDB resale market continuing to flourish in 2021. 

An estimation by analysts concludes that about 25,530 HDB flats will be eligible to be sold in 2021 after reaching its 5 year Minimum Occupation Period (MOP), an increase from the 24,163 flats that have reached their 5 year MOP in 2020.

Analysts also believe that resale prices are expected to increase by another 3 to 5% this year.

What is the typical property agent commission in Singapore?

Did you know that the Council for Estate Agencies (CEA), the regulator of property agents, does not set commission rates in Singapore. Instead, individuals are free to negotiate their property agent's commission fee.

There is however, a "typical" rate. For your benefit, we've tried to find an official source of information for these rates. Below are the rates which we have extracted from APAC Realty's recent Singapore IPO prospectus. The sources for these data include Cushman & Wakefield's research team. APAC Realty operates as ERA, one of the largest estate agents in Singapore.  

According to latest flash estimates from the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), Singapore private home prices have risen by 2.9% in the Q1 of 2021, an increase from the previous quarter where prices rose 2.1%.

Overall, we can see that the Q1 private residential property index increased to 161.6 points, an increase of 4.6 points from the Q4 of 2020.

Landed Property prices in Q1 have seen a rise by 5.6%. A significant increase since the 1.6% fall in the last quarter. 

Non-landed properties prices on the other hand are up 2.1%, as compared to the 3% increase in the Q4. Whereby prices of non-landed properties in the RCR went up by 6.1%, followed by the increase of 0.9% in the OCR. Non-landed properties in the CCR, however, saw a decrease in 0.3% this quarter.

COMPARISON OF PROPERTY PRICE INDEX FOR 4TH QUARTER 2020 AND 1ST QUARTER 2021

(Source: URA Media Release) 

As a first time home buyer, the process of buying a resale flat can be quite confusing (especially if you are doing this on your own and not through a buyer agent). There are just so many things that need to be done like getting all your documents ready, filling out paperwork, etc. That is why we have decided to write this article, to help ease you into the whole process of buying a resale HDB flat. 

In this article, we have come up with 12 main steps that you will have to take to get you through your buying process from start to finish. We will also be giving you lots of expert tips and tricks as well as things to watch out for.  Let's start with step number 1.

Step 1 - Register Your Intent To Buy

The first step in the resale buying process is to register your intent to buy a resale HDB flat. To do so, simply log into the HDB Resale Portal with your SingPass account. Please note that if you are buying a home with other applicants like your family members or your partner (fiance), only one person needs to register. Once you have done so, your intent to buy will be valid for 12 months. After its expiry, you will have to apply for a new one.

Step 2 - Apply For Your Eligibility for Housing Grant

Once you have registered your intent to buy, the HDB portal will start to show you your "buying process". This is their “step-by-step guide” on buying a HDB flat, even though there is more that goes into it. What you have to do now is to apply for your eligibility for housing grant. If you have done your research, you would know that there are 3 grants that you can apply for. If you have not, you can read our article on “Your Complete Guide to HDB Grants”. These grants are the Enhanced CPF Housing Grant (EHG), Family Grant (FG) and Proximity Housing Grant (PHG). By filling up the questionnaire on the HDB Resale Portal, HDB will tell you the estimated amount you are eligible for in terms of these 3 grants. Remember to save the results on your form because you might need it for later. 

Step 3 - Apply For Your Home Loan Eligibility (HLE) or Bank Loan

Getting your loan early is very important as it will guide you through your next steps in purchasing a home. There are two ways that you can apply for a loan, one is through a bank of your choice and the other is through HDB aka Housing Loan Eligibility or HLE. There are pros and cons to both, so we recommend that you do your research before deciding on which type of loan you would like to take up.

Once you receive your loan amount, you should move quickly as it is typically valid for only 6 months which means you have to find a home in this stipulated time or you will have to apply for a new one once it expires.