Public sector's property transaction dropped 11.2% to $9.7b in 2013

Find out what caused this.

According to Savills, under the Government Land Sales (GLS) programme, 11 state land parcels were sold for a total of S$757.2 million, accounting for 19.5% of total investment sales. 

As the majority of the lands awarded in the reviewed quarter were for industrial use, with smaller site areas and lower values, the public sector’s investment sales plummeted 81.1% QoQ.

Here's more from Savills:

For the whole of 2013, private sector transaction values increased 8.0%, from S$18.6 billion in 2012 to S$20.1 billion, while the public sector totalled S$9.7 billion, down 11.2% from S$10.9 billion a year ago.

The presence of Chinese investors/ developers has been increasing over the years. In 2013, they bought building blocks/land parcels totalling almost S$3.3 billion (excluding joint ventures with local/other overseas investors and companies), tripling the S$1.0 billion recorded in 2012.

On the other hand, Singapore investors shifted their buying interest overseas in 2013. According to Real Capital Analytics’ statistics, Singapore buyers invested a total of US$17.3 billion in overseas properties, 31.8% higher than the US$12.3 billion in 2012.

The UK, China, Malaysia, Australia and the US are the top five destinations, accounting for 80.3% of the total overseas real estate investments by Singapore investors.