SG Morning Highlights | Singapore Prime Non-Landed Home Sales Ease to S$1.1 Billion in H1 2023

Advancers / Decliners is 141 to 41, with 277.14 million securities worth S$184.52 million changing hands.

The total sales value of private prime non-landed residential property in Singapore fell to S$1.1 billion in the first half of 2023, said real estate consultancy Knight Frank.

There was a 23 per cent decline in total sales value in the first six months of the year, compared to the S$1.4 billion recorded in H2 2022, the consultancy said in a residential market update.

The number of sales transactions also fell over the same period – only 126 luxury non-landed homes were sold in H1 2023, while 163 such deals were transacted in H2 2022.

The average median rent for private non-landed homes in Singapore declined 2.2 per cent in May 2023, in contrast to the 2.4 per cent increase in the previous month, the Savills May 2023 Rental Guide indicated.

Savills said the softening of rentals for this one-to-four bedroom category was due to an increase in new housing supply in 2023, as more projects are near completion and construction delay issues have been resolved.

It also noted that the challenging macroeconomic situation has compelled companies to tighten their budgets for staff. Cost-cutting has extended to measures such as a smaller budget for expatriates' rental use as well as staff layoffs.

Ride-hailing and on-demand delivery workers in Singapore will be able to join representative bodies with similar powers to unions, under laws set to take effect from the second half of 2024.

On Wednesday (Jul 12), the government accepted an industry workgroup's eight recommendations on allowing platform worker representative bodies to seek a legal mandate and negotiate with operators such as Grab, Foodpanda and ComfortDelGro (CDG).

This comes close to a year after the Tripartite Workgroup on Representation for Platform Workers (TWG) was set up to deliberate how to strengthen the negotiating power of platform workers, who numbered 88,400 last year.

The club facility was raised under its green finance framework, which enables it to deliver environmental and social benefits to support its sustainability initiatives.

This brings GuocoLand to over S$2.9 billion of green financing secured to date, said the group on Thursday (Jul 13).

"This trade financing solution... will support Seatrium's offshore renewable projects and decarbonisation efforts, bolstering the group's implementation of green measures and investments in sustainable and environmentally-friendly technology and practices within its operations," it said in a bourse filing.

The Singapore-listed company will pay about $359.6 million upfront and another $21.8 million should FV Hospital meet certain performance milestones, it said in a press release Wednesday. The firm will fund the deal with internal resources as well as debt.

The property was valued at S$37 million by an independent professional valuer, GSH added. It has a gross floor area of approximately 901 square metres, comprising nine strata units of offices.

The purchaser, who was not named, is an unrelated party with no shareholding interest – direct or indirect – in the company or group.