Auction market set to be more active in 2022: Knight Frank

By Atiqah Mokhtar

/ EdgeProp Singapore |

February 3, 2022 2:57 PM SGT

8 Nassim Hill, where a townhouse was sold as a sheriff sale for $9.1 mil last December.

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SINGAPORE (EDGEPROP) - Auction listings declined by 23.3% q-o-q in 4Q2021 to 115 listings, including repeat listings and excluding properties sold outside of auction.

The quarter saw owner sales listings fall by 28% q-o-q in 4Q2021, while mortgagee sales listings fell 9.5% q-o-q.

For the whole of 2021, total listings came up to 670, an increase of 35.4% y-o-y. Auction success rates also improved during the year to 4.8%, compared to 3.6% logged in 2020. As a result, the total gross sales value almost tripled to $85.9 million with larger ticket properties sold under the hammer in 2021.

According to Sharon Lee, head of auction & sales at Knight Frank Singapore, the surge in total auction listings in 2021 is underpinned by a spike in owner sale listings which almost doubled y-o-y to 352 in 2021 from 180 in 2020.

Owner listings increasing across all sectors. Strata retail units, in particular, rose almost six-fold from 17 in 2020 to 101 in 2021. Residential properties saw 145 owner listings, up 41.2% y-o-y. (Check all latest property transactions in Singapore)

Lee notes that despite only two owner sale listings transacted during auction in 2021, many more were sold outside of auction. “Buyers are increasingly negotiating outside of auction under private treaties in order to enjoy more time flexibility in organising financing,” she says.

Meanwhile, mortgagee sale listings dipped by 5.6% y-o-y to 289 in 2021. “Banks’ inventories of auction properties shrank, especially for industrial listings with recovery in the manufacturing sector leading GDP growth in 2021,” Lee remarks.

Industrial mortgagee listings dipped from 97 in 2020 to 65 in 2021. Residential properties saw 137 mortgagee listings in 2021, 114 of which were for non-landed properties. (Check all latest Singapore property Market Trends)

“About a quarter of the non-landed listings were in Districts 9 and 10 at an average opening price of $2,218 psf. This was some 7.3% lower than the average psf of $2,393 for transactions in 2021, presenting a value opportunity to buyers,” Lee notes.

Looking ahead, Lee anticipates auction listings to further increase in 2022, as extended credit support and loan relief measures by the government gradually get lifted.

“In the latter half of 2022, buyers might try and lock in interest rates before the eventual gradual hike. Given the cooling measures, buyers might also feel that prices of residential properties will level off to match their price expectations in 2022,” she says.

As for other non-residential properties, she believes investors might be keen to secure strata-commercial or shophouse assets before possible spillover effects from the residential sector lead to further price increases. (Find Singapore commercial properties with our commercial directory)

According to Lee, success rates in 2022 are projected to be around 5%, similar to 2021.

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