Singapore property investment deals could reach $30b by end-2021: KF

Property investment sales surged to $5b in Q2 2021.

A total of $5b of investment deals exchanged hands in the second quarter (Q2), representing an emphatic 127.3% increase from the $2.2b recorded during the same period last year, a report by Knight Frank (KF) said.

According to the report, demand for land sites is expected to stay robust, particularly for plots that are not too large in size with a potential for 600 units or less because of brisk sales in the private home market.

“Correspondingly, the residential sector continued to garner interest, fuelled by a string of deals within the landed housing segment. Investment deals of this asset class were primarily driven by the sale of good class bungalows, totalling some $526.4m,” KF said.

Meanwhile, in the commercial sector, KF noted that key deals such as the sale of Suntec REIT’s 30% stake in the 9 Penang Road building ($295.5m), as well as the collective sale of Maxwell House ($276.8m), contributed to the substantial amount of commercial investment sales totalling $1.5b in Q2 as investors continued to keep a lookout for opportunities. In tandem with this encouraging pace of deals, given the limited availability of shophouses and its attractiveness as an investment property, this niche market also posted a hot streak of deals amounting to about $268m.

“Although not out of the woods just yet, Singapore plans to transit to normalcy where the COVID-19 virus is relegated to a common malaise through mass vaccinations, and even more sectors of the economy that have been repressed by pandemic-related restrictions will open up in the second half of 2021. With signs that the worst might be behind us, investment activity should pick up pace in the second half of the year, and could potentially reach about $30b in deals for the whole of 2021, despite totalling some $9.5b at the halfway mark,” KF said.