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Singapore Home Sales Jump to 4-Month High Amid Signs of Recovery

Singapore home sales jumped to the highest in four months in March amid signs the property market is recovering.

Singapore Home Sales Jump to 4-Month High Amid Signs of Recovery
An SMRT Corp. train moves along an elevated track as residential and commercial buildings stand in Queenstown estate in Singapore. (Photographer: Ore Huiying/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Singapore home sales jumped to the highest in four months in March amid signs the property market is recovering.

Developers sold 716 units, the Urban Redevelopment Authority said Monday. That’s more than a revised 384 units in February and the highest since November. Still, sales are running at a slower pace than early last year.

The city-state’s housing market is showing signs of recovering from a four-year slump even as officials watch cautiously after previous bouts of overheating. Property prices climbed 3.1 percent in the first quarter, the biggest gain in almost eight years.

“This is still a low number,” said Christine Li, a director of research at Cushman & Wakefield Inc. “Many developers are not pushing as many apartments in the market as they could because they are hoping for higher prices,” she said, forecasting bigger gains in coming months.

To contact the reporter on this story: Klaus Wille in Singapore at kwille@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sree Vidya Bhaktavatsalam at sbhaktavatsa@bloomberg.net, Paul Panckhurst

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