River Valley is found in District 9, which is also home to Orchard Road.
(River Valley Road. Image courtesy of Terence Ong.)
And as one can expect, the killer combination of its close proximity to the Central Business District, innumerable wine-and-dine as well and entertainment choices, breathtaking views and a sense of tranquility uncommon to Singapore means the prices of centrally located Housing Board (HDB) flats have remained sky-high despite multiple rounds of property cooling measures.
( Source: Streetsine Analytics)
Even the hard-hitting cooling measures do not appear to be a match for the excellent locations of such HDB apartments, who have come out from the trials unscathed at about $600 per sq ft (psf) at December last year. In fact there does not seem to be much difference in the gap between the average price of Central Area HDB units and the average price of all HDB units in Singapore at the start and the end of the year.
It is, however, interesting to note that prices are on the decline between October and December 2011. Keeping in mind that what analysts call the harshest round of cooling measures only occurred early December, we can safely say that this downward trend is likely to continue come this month.
Similarly, the median resale price of an average 4-room flat in the Central Area is also significantly higher than that of the average 4-room HDB unit across the country.
It should be noted that the average median resale prices have been on a very gradual incline, the same cannot be said for Central HDBs. Prices of the latter are rising at an even quicker rate than the rest of the island.
However, this trend can be expected to change because of the domino effect that the cooling measures have on the resale market. With more buyers finding homes in the new sale market and fewer engaging in price competitions in the resale market in the near future, prices look set to fall in the coming months. This is further escalated by the anticipated global economic downturn, which is causing buyer sentiment to wane and sellers to start holding back their offers.
The following table shows more transaction information for HDBs in Central Area for the month of December 2011.
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