New private residential sales in December dipped from November, after getting affected by new property cooling measures on top of the usual year-end slowdown in sales.
Ms Christine Sun, senior vice-president of research and analytics at OrangeTee & Tie, said the double whammy of cooling measures and the year-end holiday season weighed on December's sales, although the figures may not yet fully reflect the impact of the measures.
Ms Sun said the pullback in sales is expected to be temporary, as, historically, demand starts recovering around six months after cooling measures, as they did after the previous round in July 2018 .