The holiday season however will cool down resale volume.

The US Federal Reserve's first rate cut in four years in September was likely the cause of the uptick in condo resale volume in October, property analysts said.

Ismail Gafoor, CEO of PropNex said that with the US Fed signalling further cuts ahead, he foresees more buyers entering the resale market to buy a new home.

"Since the Fed rate cut announcement, we note that the 3-month Compounded SORA which banks used to price home loan packages have moderated. In mid-September, the 3M SORA was at 3.54% p.a. compared with 3.25% p.a. as at 25 November," Gafoor said.

Christine Sun, Chief Researcher & Strategist at OrangeTee said aside from rate cuts boosting consumer confidence, the increase in volume could be attributed to more buyers returning to the market after the Hungry Ghost month.

Mark Yip, CEO of Huttons Asia said that due to the higher budget from the rate cut, some HDB owners chose to buy a resale condo over a million-dollar resale flat in October. This pushed up the prices of resale condos in the OCR by 1% during the month. Similarly, some buyers chose to trade up to a resale condo in the CCR in Oct 2024, leading to gains of 0.5% in prices.

Resale volume is expected to soften as the year-end holiday season approaches as historically, both buyers and sellers tend to scale back during this period, acting as a natural cooling measure.