Singapore's Home Sales Revive After a `Hungry Ghost' Slowdown

(Bloomberg) -- Singapore’s home sales rose in October after a slowdown in September caused by the ‘Hungry Ghost’ period that’s considered inauspicious by Chinese homebuyers.

Developers sold 758 units last month, up from 657 in September, according to Urban Redevelopment Authority data released Wednesday. They also launched more units, 242 versus 73, the data showed. The seventh month of the lunar calendar year, the Hungry Ghost period, was from late August through most of September.

Singapore’s property market is turning around, with home prices climbing after a record run of declines and developers making aggressive bids for land. On Tuesday evening, a government minister indicated that officials will monitor developers to make sure that they don’t cut corners to pare costs after splashing out on land purchases.

Companies launched new units in some older projects last month including Martin Modern and The Clement Canopy. Overall, Singapore developers have sold 8,702 units through September this year, eclipsing the full-year totals for 2014 to 2016.

While the market is showing signs of a revival, there may be limits on the scale of any comeback: the bulk of the cooling measures rolled out since 2009 remain in place.

To contact the reporter on this story: Pooja Thakur in Singapore at pthakur@bloomberg.net.

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

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