Wounded Lion

Plagued at one point by the highest number of novel coronavirus cases in the region, the usually steely Singapore property market has assumed crash position

- Al Gerard De La Cruz

In the early stages of the 2020 global pandemic, Singapore was hailed as an exemplar of how to limit transmission of the novel coronavirus. The story changed rapidly to the country enduring the highest Covid-19 caseload in Southeast Asia, with efforts to contain it savaging the region’s most progressive economy, its property sector not the least.

April saw only 277 private new homes sold — 293 including executive condominiums — the worst showing for the residential market since December 2014 when the industry was girdled with property curbs.

Only 2,553 private new homes were sold in the first four months of 2020, and the month of May — the apex of Singapore’s “circuit-breaker” lockdown restrictions — was considered to be “a write-off” for primary sales.

“No segment of industry or society can be said to be totally unaffected, impervious or untouched by the pandemic,” says Leonard Tay, head of research for Knight Frank Singapore, adding “the residential real estate market is expected to go through a challenging time in the next year or so.”

Headwinds were already gusty leading to the virus, with Singapore wedged between the US-China trade war. “The economy slowed down in the second half of 2019 due to weak global growth, leading to contraction in manufacturing, particularly the electronics cluster,” says Han Huan Mei, research director of List Sotheby’s International Realty.

“Sentiments towards real estate were cautious and buyers became more selective, leading to a decline in sales volume since Q3 2019.”