ASIA-PACIFIC: Singapore private homes continue to be Asia Pacific’s least affordable housing, with a median price of $1.32 million in 2023, according to the Urban Land Institute’s 2024 ULI Asia Pacific Home Attainability Index released on Tuesday (May 21).
The report, which drew on statistics from 48 cities in 11 markets in Asia-Pacific (namely, Australia, China (including Hong Kong SAR), India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam) pointed to immigration as a key driver of housing price appreciation in gateway cities including Singapore, Sydney, and Tokyo.
“An increase in cross-border migration in the past few years has caused home price and rent to rise materially, worsening home attainability in cities experiencing significant inflows of financially well-to-do immigrants,” it said.
Despite Singapore’s private homes being the most expensive in the region, the city state has a homeownership rate of nearly 90%.
Hong Kong homes ranked as the second most expensive in the region with a median price of $1.16 million. Homes in Sydney, the next highest market, had a median price of US$1.06 million, according to data compiled by the non-profit research institute.
In Australia, in the past two years, over 2,000 home builders went out of business largely due to rising interest rates, building materials and labour costs. Homeowners face substantial financial risk such as not being able to recover deposits or not having the home constructed as agreed.
“The housing market has been significantly affected by heightened interest rates and rising costs. Home ownership represents the most valuable asset for most households, and the housing sector is a key part of the overall economy. Moving forward, we expect to see governments in the region introduce more countermeasures to rein in rising home prices” Alan Beebe, CEO, ULI Asia Pacific stated.
The Asia Pacific region represents 60% of the world with a population of 4.3 billion people. Established in 1936, the ULI has more than 48,000 members worldwide and over 3,000 members in the Asia Pacific region representing all aspects of land use and development disciplines.
