Demand for larger homes fuel HDB resale price growth: experts

A new record number of million-dollar flats was recorded last month.

Strong demand for larger, more expensive HDB flats in the secondary market drove resale price growth to accelerate in January, a trend that is likely to continue throughout 2024 according to property analysts.

Christine Sun, chief researcher and strategist at OrangeTee & Tie, said last month’s 1.5% MoM uptick in HDB resale prices market marked the first time price growth breached the 1% mark in nine months or since April 2023 (1.1% increase).

Sun said demand for larger rooms led last month’s price surge with resale prices of five-room flats jumping by 2.1% MoM in January. The volume of five-room HDB flats that changed hands in the secondary market also jumped by a third to 608 units in January, the highest tally since September 2022.

“The demand surge for 5-room flats was within expectations as we had earlier anticipated that demand for large flats would likely rise this year,” she said. “This is because the first batch of private residential property owners who intended to buy HDB resale flats would have completed their 15-month wait-out period from January this year.”

READ MORE: HDB resale prices rise 1.5% MoM in January

Mark Yip, CEO of Huttons Asia, said higher sales of million-dollar flats also helped drive the resale market last month with 74 HDB flats crossing the $1m mark, the city-state’s highest monthly tally of million-dollar flats.

Yip expects more than 500 HDB resale flats to be transacted this year to beat the 470 units resold last year.