How serious are property market forecasts?
March 5, 2025
This March companies are busy preparing sales forecasts for the new financial year. Regarding forecasts, I have said this in my book Behind The Scenes of The Property Market:
“With high uncertainties looming in the global economy, it is doubtful whether anyone can predict what will happen in six months, let alone the full year. Those who claim that they can do so are most likely either fortune-tellers or liars.”
Let me add that sharing speculations with strangers is not the privilege of fortune-tellers and liars, but salespeople too. Honestly, if you were a salesperson, to save your job in the next round of retrenchment, you would also submit an ambitious sales forecast now.
New home sales forecast – Here we go again
On a January EdgeProp article, PropNex said developers will sell 8,000 to 9,000 new units in 2025. ERA made an estimation between 7,000 and 8,000 units. Huttons agreed with a similar guess of 7,000 to 8,000 units.
EdgeProp published a February article with the title “CBRE projects between 7,000 to 8,000 new homes could be sold in 2025, increasing from 2024’s 6,469 units.”
Interestingly, last year’s “CBRE 2024 Singapore Real Estate Market Outlook” also mentioned the same numbers: “CBRE Research expects 7,000 – 8,000 new homes to be sold in 2024, an improvement from the 6,421 units in 2023.”... read more