URA latest property data revealed that August new private home sales in Singapore slumped 47.6 per cent from July due to the lack of launches in the month of Hungry Ghost Festival.

Property developers sold a total of 437 units excluding executive condominiums (ECs) lower than the 834 units sold in July 2022.

On a year-on-year basis, new home sales in August fell 64.1 per cent from the 1,216 units sold in August 2021.

Analysts have attributed the sluggish sales as no new launch projects were launched last month. Hence, some buyers turned to existing launches such as Hyll On Holland, Riviere, Perfect Ten and The Hyde.

There is a taboo on not buying real estate property during the Hungry Ghost Festival as it is deemed to be unlucky to most Chinese believers. 

Nevertheless, 220 units located in the CCR were sold during August, followed by homes in the rest of central region (RCR) or city fringe with 127 units and the outside central region (OCR) with 90 units.The fixed interest rate for home loans hover between 2.7% to 3.00% did dampen some investors' interest in property purchases. 

URA data shows that the number of condos excluding ECs, bought by foreign buyers also grew from 42 units in July to 59 units in August.

Healthy sales volume from Sky Eden@Bedok and Lentor Modern will buck the trend for September.