SINGAPORE remains the world's second-most expensive housing market after Hong Kong, according to an annual CBRE report which compares private residential property markets across 35 cities. But average price growth was significantly slower, at just 1.1 per cent.
Hong Kong kept its top position with an average residential property costing US$1.235 million or US$2,091 per square foot . Singapore came a distant second at US$874,372 or US$1,063 psf, with Shanghai third at US$872,555 or US$714 psf. CBRE noted that these top three cities have all introduced cooling measures to keep prices under control.
Asian cities took half of the spots in the top 10, with Shenzhen coming in fifth and Beijing, ninth. The other cities in the list were Vancouver , Los Angeles , New York , London and Paris . Singapore's private property market saw average price growth of 1.1 per cent in 2018, far outpaced by Hong Kong's and Shanghai's growth rates of 5.5 per cent and 11.2 per cent respectively, and ranking 27th out of the 35 cities studied.The report's property data for Singapore comes from the Urban Redevelopment Authority's Realis database, which covers only private property transactions.
He noted that following property curbs introduced last year, price growth declined for the second straight quarter in Q1 2019, after five consecutive quarters of strong growth since Q3 2017."Coupled with increasing supply and weaker sentiment, prices are likely to moderate or remain flat from this year going forward," he added.