The number of listed auctions in 2018 rose by 35% y-o-y to 1,088 listings, including re-listings, Colliers International said in a report on Singapore’s property auction market. It is the highest annual level since Colliers started records in 2008.
The increase was driven by more residential and industrial owner sale listings, as well as a record number of properties being put up in mortgagee sales by banks. There were 472 mortgagee listings (43% of the total listings) recorded last year, which is a 27% increase from 2017. Meanwhile, owner listings grew by 43% y-o-y to 616 listings last year.
“The number of mortgagee listings has risen gradually in the last five years, possibly stemming from the bull run in the market in 2011 to 2013 where some buyers might have snapped up units at elevated prices, and subsequently found themselves unable to service the mortgage payments,” says Tricia Song, head of research for Singapore at Colliers International.
She expects property auction listings (both owners’ and mortgagee sales) and auction sales to grow this year as “cooling measures continue to bite for the residential segment and more owners putting up non-residential properties for sale”, she says.
There were 35 auction sales for the whole of last year, which is a 27% y-o-y decline, compared to 48 properties sold in 2017. The overall success rate of properties sold by auction dropped from 6% in 2017 to 3.2% in 2018, “reflecting investors’ cautious approach and a widening price gap between buyers and sellers”, says Steven Tan, director of capital markets & investment services at Colliers International.
The Colliers auction team sold 10 properties – eight non-land properties and two industrial units – worth a combined $12 million last year. The largest deal, in terms of absolute price, was the sale of a 1,399 sq ft unit at Botanic Gardens Mansion which changed hands for $2.65 million ($1,894 psf) on May 23.
“(This year), we could see rising demand from many collective sale beneficiaries who have sold their property in the past two years turning to the auction market for immediately-available replacement homes,” says Tan.