Housing prices considered steady

The overall residential property price index is considered to have held steady from April to June 2022, decreasing only 0.3% from the previous period (March – May 2022) to 258.7. The indices for the Macau Peninsula (259.0) and Taipa & Coloane (257.7) dropped by 0.2% and 0.5% respectively, according to the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC).

Real estate developer Centaline Property has previously reported that the transaction volume showed signs of recovery at the beginning of the second quarter.

However, with the city recently recording its largest Covid outbreak so far, the firm is expecting that the residential transaction volume in June will hit a new low in a single month, with only 150 transactions. 

Meanwhile, the index for existing residential units fell by 0.2% to 276.5; the index for Taipa & Coloane fell by 0.6% to 305.1, while the index for Macau Peninsula (269.3) stayed flat from the previous period. 

Residential housing transaction in the city is expected to continue to decline in the short term.

Centaline Property estimated that the total residential transaction volume for the first half of the year was about 1,600, down 50% from the same period last year. Compared with Macau’s quarterly average of over 1,000 transactions before the pandemic, there are now little more than 1,000 transactions every two quarters.

In terms of commercial property, the latest data shows 78 transactions in the first quarter. With the Covid outbreak and the economic downturn, the developer expects that the total transaction volume in the first half of the year is estimated to be about 138, down nearly 30% year-on-year, with the total transactions involved standing at about MOP1.44 billion, down 20% year-on-year.

“The transaction volume may rebound after the epidemic, but there is little chance of price increases,” Centaline Property stated in its latest report. LV