Elite property agents are not giving up on Singapore’s battered luxury home market

Major real estate players have teamed up to boost sales.

Two major real estate players have formed an elite sales team of about 200 luxury home agents in a bid to inject life into Singapore’s battered luxury residential market.

Despite the prolonged downturn of luxury home sales, real estate agency PropNex and property consultancy JLL still believe that the high-end property market’s growth prospects remain sound.

“Relative to other major markets and in the context of the wealth in Singapore, our luxury homes are undervalued. For example, Hong Kong’s high-end residential market, despite facing similarly strong governmental measures, is trading at 165 per cent of Singapore’s equivalent, while both New York and London are close to 100 per cent higher than Singapore,” said Chris Fossick, JLL’s Managing Director for Singapore and South East Asia.

Fossick added that in 2015, as many as seven major prime residential bloc deals totalling $900 million in value took place, an indicator that the market has found its bottom or is close to it. This prompted both companies to launch the Luxury Real Estate initiative, which is aimed at assisting developers and buyers of luxury homes in Singapore.

“Developers of luxury properties in Singapore need more help than before to move their inventory. The challenges are largely owing to policies that have suppressed demand from foreigners and investors,” Fossick noted.

The agents were selected from PropNex’s pool of 5,500 salespersons based on their connection into the world of high-net worth buyers.

Luxury properties are mostly located near Orchard Road, Marina Bay and Sentosa and have values that can range from $5 million to $50 million.

“Out of a total of 1.3 million homes in Singapore, private and public included, JLL estimates that the stock of luxury homes represents a mere one per cent. Despite the small size of the market, we see a strong need for a specialised approach to help our luxury developer clients, befitting the high value and quality of their real estate as well as the profile of the purchasers,” Fossick added. 

This new initiative comes a year after JLL and PropNex entered into a strategic partnership, when JLL acquired a stake inPropNex’s project marketing business. Since then, both companies have broadened their scope of cooperation, in areas such as auction and project marketing of commercial developments.