Singapore overtakes Hong Kong as most expensive Asia-Pacific city to buy or rent homes

The median price of Singapore’s private homes was $1.2 million in 2022, compared to Hong Kong’s $1.16 million, said a new report by the Urban Land Institute (ULI).

Singapore is now the most expensive city in the Asia-Pacific region for private homes and has overtaken Hong Kong on this score. The median price of Singapore’s private homes was $1.2 million in 2022, compared to Hong Kong’s $1.16 million, said a new report by the Urban Land Institute (ULI).

Among the eight cities studied in India, Mumbai has the highest median home price per square metre of $3,383, with Delhi NCR trailing far behind at $1,358. Compared to other developing countries, India’s housing price is relatively inexpensive compared to the median household income, the report said.

ULI’s report, 2023 Asia Pacific Home Attainability Index, provides a snapshot of the extent to which housing is attainable in cities in the region.

Rents in the city-state were also the region’s highest, the report said. Private rental homes in Singapore also had the highest monthly rent in the region at $2,600, “far exceeding” other cities such as Sydney, Melbourne and Hong Kong, according to the report.

The study covered 45 cities in nine countries, namely, Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea and Vietnam, with a combined population of 3.5 billion or around 45 percent of the world’s total population, measuring home attainability for both home ownership and home rentals in relation to the median income of households.

The key reasons for the sharp increase in home prices and rent in Singapore were a large influx of immigrants into the city-state, a growing trend of young professionals moving out of their multi-generational family homes for more space and freedom and the government’s new measure that requires homeowners to serve a 15-month wait-out period after the disposal of their private properties before they are eligible to buy a non-subsidised Housing Development Board (HDB) resale flat.

A relatively limited stock of institutionally or individually owned rental properties, and reduced new supply of housing in the past few years due to the disruptions in the supply chain of building materials and labour due to Covid-19, also were big contributory factors, said the report.

Homeownership in Singapore, according to the report, varies significantly and is often a function of government policies and population migration. Singapore continues to have the highest homeownership rate of nearly 90 percent, the report said.

In contrast, other gateway cities such as Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo and Seoul have relatively low homeownership rates, reflecting high home prices and the more migratory nature of the populations in these cities.