New injection of additional COE quota announced for November

The LTA has announced yet another injection of COE quota.

This new injection will see a total of another 1,614 COE added across categories A, B, and C, for the period from November 2023 to January 2024. This new injection is on top of the 1,895 total reallocated COEs that was announced on 13 October 2023.

It's worth noting too that this current August-October quarter had already gotten an additional 300 COEs for Category A midway, on top of what was announced before the period had begun.

The LTA announced an unprecedented one-time adjustment of 6,000 additional COEs back in May, to be drawn from impending confirmed de-registrations, and to be spread out over the following quarters 

To recap, all of these additional COE injections are coming out of the one-time adjustment of approximately 6,000 COEs (announced back in May 2023) that the LTA is bringing forward from impending confirmed de-registrations. 

The distribution of the added quotas is reproduced in the table below.

There will be no change for the quotas available for the other COE categories.

Interestingly, the LTA has made sure to include the following statement in its press release, saying, "Potential buyers may want to take note that the COE quota for Categories A, B and C will continue to increase in 2024 before reaching the peak supply period from 2025". (Category D is expected to remain comparable between 2023 and 2024.)

The additional note by the LTA seems to suggest that prices may start coming down from 2025.

Nonetheless, Sgcarmart has also done a little math - and the following table recaps every instance during which the LTA appears to have drawn from the pool of 6,000 COEs taken from the one-time adjustment

By Sgcarmart's calculations, this means the LTA has almost fully utilised the bumper crop set aside earlier this year. 

On the one hand, there is little to no question that the LTA intends for these injections to have cooling measures on the market. They have steadily arrived as COE premiums stand at unbelievable peaks across all categories; Category A is well above $100,000, while B and E are around $150,000. 

On the other hand, the regularity of these additions should perhaps be also taken as a sign that even if prices cool in the near future, the effect can only be temporary if the COE system does not change, if demand remains high, and if overall supply remains level.