Knight Frank Commentary | Monthly Developer Sales - October 2025

Developers resumed launching projects in October with some urgency as there is a limited window after the Lunar Seventh Month (Hungry Ghost Festival) and before the year-end holidays start. There were 2,424 developer sales (excluding Executive Condominiums (ECs)) in October, a very substantial nine-and-a-half times more than the 255 sales in September, and more than three times higher than the same period a year ago in October 2024. The developer sales recorded in October was also the highest monthly count in 2025 thus far, right on the back of September’s lowest monthly total. Homebuyers were active at the showflats of the four projects launched in October, namely Faber Residence, Penrith, Skye at Holland and Zyon Grand, where the individual project sales take-up ranged between 84% and 99% of the respective project’s total number of units. The ongoing appetite of homebuyers for new product remains intact in a year that has been and continues to be characterised by global political tensions and economic uncertainty.

As such, in the first ten months of the year, there is an estimated total of 10,299 primary market sales based on the official count announced for Q1 to Q3 2025 together with the developer sales for the month of October. A quick scan of caveats lodged as of today 17 Nov 2025, showed that a total of 11,818 new sales have been recorded. These totals have far exceeded the 7,000 to 9,000 range forecasted by Knight Frank earlier this year. It is now almost certain that new sales will reach 12,000 units in 2025, beyond any expectations set a year ago. Who would have predicted that demand for new private homes will cross the 10,000-unit mark, surpassing the annual totals each year from 2022 to 2024, to land close to the 13,027 new sale units transacted in 2021. The main critical factors that created the environment for such a private housing boom in an age of uncertainty is the low unemployment rate where household earnings and saving remained intact for much of the year, as well as the decline in interest rates. The reduction of interest rates from September 2024 onwards was the sweetener that induced many homebuyers to leave the sidelines and actively make purchase decisions throughout 2025.

The 724 developer sales in the Core Central Region (CCR) in October is the highest on record since the beginning of this data series. The last time monthly developer sales in the CCR breached 700 units was in March (717 units) and January (702 units) 2010, more than 15 years ago and way before the Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty (ABSD) was at a rate of 60% for foreign buyers. Resident homebuyers are beginning to see the comparative value of CCR homes after the pandemic. The price growth in the CCR essentially lagged behind the entire private home market which had risen by some 40% since the pandemic. Even though the recent launches in the CCR injected the prime areas with renewed activity, prices in the CCR have not risen as briskly when compared to the RCR and OCR. In the past five years (Q3 2020 to Q3 2025), the non-landed private home price index for the CCR grew by a cumulative 26%, against the gains of 47% and 46% made in the Rest of Central Region (RCR) and Outside Central Region (OCR) respectively.  With the narrowed price gap between the prime locations versus the rest of the island, value opportunities have emerged for the observant homebuyer. And this includes options for capital preservation and legacy transfer, especially when a substantial proportion of the completed freehold inventory is in the CCR.