Singapore house prices rise in 1978 Q4

Private residential house prices in Singapore moved higher at the end of 1978. According to the Department of Statistics Singapore, the house price index for private residential property stood at 9.8 in 1978 Q4. The index uses 2009-Q1 as its base period, with that period set at 100. A reading of 9.8 therefore places late-1978 price levels far below those of the base period, a reminder of how much the market has shifted since then.

The 1978 Q4 reading was above the level recorded in the period just before it. In 1978 Q3 the index stood at 9.5, according to the Department of Statistics Singapore. Housing Market Group calculates that the move from 1978 Q3 to 1978 Q4 represents a rise of 3.2%. Among the readings covered here, this was the most recent upward step in the index.

Looking further back, the earlier figures show a pattern of rises followed by pauses. The index was 9.1 in 1977 Q4 and was unchanged at 9.1 in 1978 Q1. It then rose to 9.5 in 1978 Q2 and held at 9.5 in 1978 Q3, before climbing to 9.8 in 1978 Q4. Prices therefore did not rise in every period. Instead, each increase was followed by a spell in which the index stayed flat, until the close of 1978 brought a fresh rise.

Compared with a year earlier, the increase is more pronounced. Housing Market Group's calculation, based on Department of Statistics Singapore figures, shows that the index was 7.7% higher in 1978 Q4 than in 1977 Q4. The annual gain built up in 2 steps: the move up in 1978 Q2 and the further rise in 1978 Q4. In 1978 Q1 and 1978 Q3 the index did not change from the reading before.

Taken together, the figures describe a private residential market in which prices rose over 1978 as a whole, finishing the year at their highest point within this set of readings. The data cover Singapore's private residential segment only. They do not include breakdowns by area within the country, comparisons with other markets or Housing Market Group platform data on search demand and listings for this period, so the picture is limited to the national index for this property type. The period-on-period and annual changes cited here were calculated by Housing Market Group from the official index values, while the index levels themselves come from the Department of Statistics Singapore.