A near-empty street the central business district of Singapore on July 26, 2021. (File photo: Bloomberg)

SINGAPORE — A record number of Singapore public housing units were sold for S$1 million (US$780,000) or more in the June quarter, a private data provider said on Wednesday, taking the number of high-value sales in the first half of the year to almost 75% of the 2024 total.

Eight out of 10 Singapore citizens live in public housing built and sold by the government, and its affordability is a key issue for policymakers alongside high living costs.

According to real estate agency OrangeTee Group, a record 415 apartments were sold at prices above S$1 million in the second quarter, a 75.8% increase compared to the same period in 2024, after 348 sales in the first quarter.

Sales of million-dollar flats this year are "on track to exceed last year's full-year record of 1,035 units", OrangeTee Group analysts said in a report. The most expensive resale in the quarter was a 122 square metres (1,313 square feet) apartment which sold for S$1,658,888, the report showed. Overall, resale prices rose 0.9% on a quarterly basis, according to earlier government data.

While prices have now risen for 21 straight quarters, it was the smallest rise since the second quarter of 2020, during the coronavirus 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic. OrangeTee Group analysts expect public home resale prices "to rise modestly for the remainder of the year, driven by our stable economic fundamentals and declining interest rates", forecasting an annual rise of 4% to 5.5%.

Last year, the government sought to cool the market by reducing how much buyers can borrow from the state. After a better-than-expected first half performance, the government on Tuesday raised its GDP growth forecast for 2025 to 1.5% to 2.5% from 0.0% to 2.0%, having cut the forecast earlier this year after the announcement of US tariffs.