Certificate of entitlement (COE) prices for cars ended higher at the latest tender yesterday, signalling strong sales after premiums plunged to an eight-year low two weeks ago.
The COE price for cars up to 1600cc and 130bhp chalked up the biggest increase, closing 30.8 percent higher at $32,699. The premium for cars above 1600cc or 130bhp rose by 3.4 percent to $32,551.
The premium for Open COEs, which can be used for any vehicle type except motorcycles, finished 5.8 percent higher at $32,809.
Despite the rebound, car premiums are still near their lowest levels in years.
Mr Nicholas Wong, general manager of Honda agent Kah Motor, said: “If you saw the crowd at the showrooms over the weekend, you’d be scared.
“So the rebound in premiums is quite expected. It has brought some excitement back to the car market. It hasn’t been like this for quite a while.”
Mr Wong said the premium for cars is still relatively low. “It went down by $9000 and went up by $7000,” he said, referring to the results for cars up to 1,600cc.
He expects premiums to remain “quite stable, or even dip by a bit” with the bigger supply of COEs starting next month.
“In fact, when news of the bigger quota came out, you could sense buyers starting to hold back.”
Meanwhile, the commercial vehicle COE premium eased by 0.7 percent to close at $30,889. Motorcycle premiums dipped by 5 percent to $6189, an eight-month low.
For the August-October quota period, there will be 12.5 percent more COEs available each month.
Car buyers will have 6912 COEs a month, or 5.7 percent more than now. Motorcyclists will get the biggest increase, with their quota ballooning to 1639 COEs per month, or 55.7 percent bigger than now.
