Disclaimer: This is a time-relevant blog post.
At this stage in early 2021 – this article is highly relevant and will be helpful to you if you have serious plans to sell your property.
If you have been following Second Property Investors for awhile through my FB page – you will have seen this various posts about how hot the market is and the strong demand for ready-to-move-in homes.
Please take note – I am NOT asking you to quickly buy a property.
Instead, if you have plans to sell your home – do consider it seriously.
In my daily activities, I get to meet many buyers when I serve sellers.
And I get to meet many sellers when I serve buyers.
At the same time, I also meet alot of fellow real estate agents.
So I am very close to the action on the ground and I do have a feel of what is going on in the Singapore property market.
(In 2020, I met 130+ families alone. That meant I met a new family every 2-3 days.)
The Biggest Blindspot of Property Sellers & Buyers In The Market
One thing that I noticed regularly is that many people are not really sure about the price in the market.
These are the 2 most common occurences I noticed:
- Seller is selling too low OR
- Buyer is paying too high
Either one will happen whenever I study the transaction.
I remember my seller telling me –
“Gary, we are lucky you are on our side in this transaction.”
Why did she say so?
Cos I helped her to get an almost $50k Cash Over Valuation (COV) – but the buyer got cold feet from the cash involved and backed out from the deal.
The next moment, I managed to secure another ready buyer to pay her an option fee at $40k COV – once the $50k COV option-to-buy expired.
They were surprised that I managed to get a replacement so fast.
The truth is that behind their backs, I actually do a lot more things that they might not even considered.
I can read the situation well and usually, I have a backup plan in place to make sure my client is protected.
Below are some of the examples where you can observe on how much prices have appreciated and why you should expect higher prices now.
I pulled out data from Squarefoot for you to see here:
From each area, I zoom down to a random block and follow an ABC sequence.
From A: Blk 101 at Ang Mo Kio
From B: Blk 128 at Bedok and Blk 194 at Bishan
From C: Blk 471 CCK
You can really observe that most of the latest transactions in 2020 is much higher then the previous transactions from 2019.
Some even has a big difference in price even within just a small gap of a few months.
This basically tells me the trend of prices is going higher and it is a very, very good time for sellers.
Even if your flat is more than 10 years old – there is demand – and buyers seem willing to pay.
This is what I mean by it is time for you to increase your price expectations.
These Prices Should Pull Up Your Confidence Level
If you have serious plans to sell your home, do not be fearful to increase your asking price.
There are ready buyers who are willing to pay for the privilege of owning a home that is ready-to-move-in.
If you want to take advantage of this trend, now is the time to take serious action.
But there is a problem.
The Property Market Is Moving Too Fast
The market has been moving too fast. Way too fast actually.
There are alot of active buyers, sellers or even agents who have NOT caught up with the market.
So in the end, you will see sellers selling at a much cheaper price then what they are supposed to.
$10-20k above last transaction is actually not high at all in a market like this.
With renovations, there might be some differences.
But $8k, $10k and $12k above transactions from 2 years ago – those prices are too low even for today’s market.
We should ask for higher price.
This is the time for HDB owners to re-capture lost ground. Be confident about it.
HDB prices has been sliding down for the past 8 years.
Here are some example on the OTPs I issued over the last few months that is much higher than the last few transactions.
Not all of them are the highest transactions at that HDB block. But they are sparking a new wave of transactions where prices are hitting new highs.
All are cases where I represented the seller in securing a better price for their home.
Addresses are blurred to protect my clients’ privacy.
Transaction #1: 5-Room HDB Flat at Kang Ching Road Sold @ $576K
The last transaction on record for this was in Nov 2019 where a similar 5-room flat was sold at $530K.
I managed to secure a selling price of $576K in Nov 2020.
Transaction #2: 4-room HDB Flat at Woodlands Sold @ $400K
Transaction #3: 4-room HDB Flat at Bishan Sold @ $692,888
Transaction #4: 4-room HDB Flat at Edgefield Plains Sold @ $460K
Transaction #5: 4-room HDB Flat at Yishun Sold @ $443,588
Transaction #6: 5-room HDB Flat at Upper Serangoon Crescent Sold @ $638,888
Transaction #7: 2-room HDB Flat at Toa Payoh Sold @ $200K
For this particular 2-room HDB case, I wrote about it on FB below:
Transaction #8: 3-bedder unit @ Bartley Sold @ $1.4 Million
For the unit that I sold at $1.4 million, it was actually facing construction of an upcoming BTO flat.
For the rest of the high-priced units – they are actually facing landed areas with a permanent unblocked view.
Transaction #9: 4-room DBSS @ Yuan Ching Road Sold @ $670K
For this DBSS, I sold it for a record price of $670K.
Other newer transactions at this location has yet to match this price.
Transaction #10: 2-bedder unit @ Holland Sold @ $1.6 Million
For this unit at Holland, I managed to sell it in just 2 viewings.
I found out that the other 2-bedder unit for sale has already been on the market for more than 1 year.
Conclusion
My goal for this blog post is to provide some ideas of what is going on right now on the ground – especially for HDB transactions.
I am not sure how long this trend might last but what is obvious is the pandemic is helping to push up demand for larger homes especially from READY-TO-BUY buyers.
If you want to know in greater detail of what is happening – you can check out my previous blog post.
This is when HDB sellers can gain an added advantage after years of looking at HDB resale prices being on the decline.
Just 2 years ago, HDB prices have been sliding down for 6 years.
Now in 2021 – it is climbing back up.
I personally handled a HDB transaction in 2020 where the COV was about $100K.
As always, I do not recommend selling your homes if you are not clear yet on your plans for your next property or residence.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me for a no-obligation consultation session.
We usually do these sessions over Zoom.
We can sit down together with your spouse and do a detailed financial assessment so you can decide for yourself what your next move will be.
In the meantime, check out this article I wrote: Why Your Property Hasn’t Been Sold Despite Various Marketing Efforts – Here I share 10 reasons why.
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