Singapore's private home prices up 0.5 percent in Q3

Singapore's private home prices continued to rise marginally by 0.5 percent during the third quarter till the end of September, following the quarterly rise of 0.4 percent in the second quarter and the 0.1 percent drop in the first quarter. The city-state's Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) announced Monday the flash estimate of the price index for private residential property here. The price increase was mainly due to the mass market segment that outside central region where prices rose 1 percent, compared with the 0.5 percent increase in Q2. Prices in rest of central region also increased by 0.7 percent in Q3, still higher than the figure of 0.4 percent climb in Q2. However, prices of non-landed private residential properties in core central region rose in a more moderate rate of 0.2 percent compared with that of 0.6 percent in Q2. The rising prices in housing market have long been the main drive for the country's high inflation rate. Although earlier statistics had showed that the new private home sales down 27 percent in August, partly due to the Hungry Ghost Festival of lunar July, the demands for real estates were still strong as refer to the rising home prices.