Why cooling property measures are most punitive on industrial REITs

Prices jumped two-fold in 4 years.

According to Maybank Kim Eng, the overall S-REITs market has tanked 2.7% with industrial REITs bearing the brunt – down 3.4% in five days.

This segment saw correction across the board, with large-caps counters like A-REIT, MLT and MIT falling 2.9-3.7% over the period. Neither were the smaller caps spared – AAREIT/CACHE/SSREIT fell more than 4%.

Here's more from Maybank Kim Eng:

There are a few reasons why industrial property prices jumped twofold in four years.

Some clients have queried why industrial property prices were allowed to escalate to such high levels in the past 4-5 years post-GFC. We believe this was unintended and the reasons could be as follows:

1. Following eight rounds of residential cooling measures since 14 Sep 2009, a lot of the “hot” money flowed into industrial properties, especially those that were strata-titled and overextended their allowable use (eg, pseudo-office/residential usage).

2. Residential, office and retail land parcels have traditionally been under the purview of the more “socially-inclined” Urban Redevelopment Authority, whereas the key agency for industrial land is Jurong Town Council (JTC), which tends to be more "economic-driven".

The industrial cooling measures enacted thus far have proven to be more muted compared to the residential segment (perhaps it carries more far-reaching social implications). Of course, the fact that five out of nine industrial REITs got listed from 2010-2013 (after the GFC) did not help matters.