Singapore's real estate market one of world's most transparent: JLL

It scored highly for its transaction processes and logged its lowest score in sustainability.

Singapore has been named one of the world’s most “highly transparent” real estate markets in JLL’s Global Real Estate Transparency Index published in September 2024.

The Lion City ranked 13th out of 89 markets globally with a 1.92 composite score, besting Hong Kong SAR (15th; 1.97), and coming behind Australia (4th; 1.37), New Zealand (7th; 1.59), and Japan (11th; 1.83) in the Asia Pacific region.

The United Kingdom took the top spot as the most transparent real estate market in the world with a 1.24 score, followed by France (1.26) and the United States (1.34).

Real estate transparency refers to whether a market demonstrates accountability and quality of governance; as well as whether it is an open, active private real estate market. 

This year’s index measured transparency in the following categories: investment performance, market fundamentals, listed vehicles, regulatory & legal, transaction processes, and sustainability. 

On a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being the highest score, Singapore got its highest score in its transaction processes (1.47) and lowest score in sustainability (2.64), which is on par with the metrics of other “highly transparent” markets on the list.

Singapore also scored highly in regulatory & legal (1.66), listed vehicles (1.71), and market fundamentals (1.87).

In comparison, the UK got a perfect score of 1.00 in the listed vehicles and its transaction processes metrics, and near perfect scores in investment performance at 1.02 and regulatory and legal at 1.03.

The UK logged its lowest score at sustainability, with 2.09.