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Owner sale listings jump 84.6% y-o-y in first two months of 2024, opening prices more than doubled

By Nur Hikmah Md Ali

/ EdgeProp Singapore |

March 27, 2024 5:18 PM SGT

SRI auction market (Photo: SRI)

SINGAPORE (EDGEPROP) - The Singapore property auction market saw a 84.6% surge in owner sale listings (excluding repeated listings) over the first two months of this year, increasing from 13 listings between Jan-Feb 2023 to 24 listings over the same period this year, according to a market report by SRI.

SRI also reports that the total value of owner sale listings (excl repeated listings) over the first two months of this year came in at $107.3 million, a 66.9% increase from $64.3 million valued over the same period last year, says Mok Sze Sze, managing partner at SRI. She attributes the uptick in total value to a rise in the number of commercial and industrial properties on the block. The number of commercial and industrial properties that went under the hammer grew from eight listings in the first two months of 2023 to 15 in the first two months of 2024.

Among the industrial properties sold under the hammer so far this year are two B2 units at M-Space, a freehold industrial building in Mandai Estate, that were sold by SRI auctions for $1.33 million and $1.89 million last month.

The value of mortgage sale listings (excluding repeated listings) in the first two months of 2024 also jumped 121.4%, from $8.6 million in Jan-Feb 2023 to $19 million. This is despite a slip in the total number of mortgagee listings on the market. “This growth… reflects the entry of higher-priced and bigger sized properties into the mortgagee sales market,” says Mok.

She expects to see more distressed properties coming onstream in 2H2024, a trend primarily fuelled by high interest rates and a challenging macroeconomic landscape on the backdrop of rising bankruptcy applications and cessation of business entities. SRI cites data from the Ministry of Law that shows an increase in the number of applications for bankruptcy to 3,986 applications last year. This is a 9.3% y-o-y jump from 3,648 applications in 2022. It also marks the highest number of personal bankruptcy applications in a year in the past 18 years.

Due to the higher interest environment and corresponding increase in mortgage rates, some homeowners may have found themselves under financial strain that has put more pressure on their loan repayments, says Mok, adding: “This financial pressure often results in the bank foreclosing on properties when homeowners are unable to meet their mortgage obligations. In such scenarios, banks commonly opt to sell the seized properties through auctions”.

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