City’s average home price down 8 pct in H1, 2015

City homes have declined in terms of both average price and transaction year-on-year for the first half of 2015, as the price of off-plan sales has posted a faster pace of decrease when compared with finished flats, the latest data from the Financial Services Bureau (DSF) shows.
For the overall home market in Macau, the average price of a flat was MOP93,275 (US$11,943) per square metre for the first half of this year, down 8 per cent compared to a year ago. At the same time, the number of home transactions has dropped 32 per cent year-on-year to a total of 2,907 cases for the first six months of this year, official data indicates.
The average saleable area of homes was 67 square metres for the first half of this year, almost the same as a year ago.
For the first half of this year, the average price of an unfinished flat has declined by about one-fifth year-on-year to MOP127,156 per square metre, while the number of off-plan sales has shrunk by 23 per cent to only 647 cases in the period.
The city has also seen the average price of a completed flat reach MOP81,559 for the first half of this year, down 3.6 per cent when compared to a year ago. Meanwhile, the transactions of completed flats have dropped by nearly 34 per cent to 2,260 cases.
The drop seen in the average home price as indicated by this latest official data expresses a reverse trend of the property boom here as seen in the years following the opening of the gaming concessions: the average transaction price of homes in the territory hit a peak of MOP99,795 per square metre for 2014, about 12 times the value of 2004, a separate set of available data from the Statistics and Census Service shows.
Completed Flats
As the latest information from the Financial Services Bureau reveals, the average price of a flat here was MOP92,497 per square metre in June, up 2.6 per cent compared to May but 5 per cent lower compared to a year ago. In June, a total of 602 home transactions were recorded – of which 473 were completed flats.
In the month, the average price of a completed flat was MOP84,620, down 7.2 per cent when compared to MOP91,193 a year ago. The number of transactions of completed homes is also 49 less when compared to June last year.
Most of the completed flats transacted in June were located on the Macau Peninsula, with the priciest in the reclaimed zone of Areia Preta (MOP90,286 per square metre), Lam Mau district (MOP93,352 per square metre), and Outer Harbour and Nam Van area (MOP119,654 per square metre).
As of June, the average price of an unfinished flat dropped 8.3 per cent year-on-year to MOP118,636 per square metre, during a month when some 129 transactions were registered.