Singapore Property Investment Doubled To S$7.13bil In Q3
SINGAPORE – Data from Savills showed that real estate investments in the city-state doubled from S$3.57 billion in Q2 2023 to S$7.13 billion during the third quarter, reported The Edge on Wednesday noon (18 October, SGT).
However, the property consultancy expects 2023 to “be an underwhelming year for the real estate investment market,” said Jeremy Lake, Managing Director for investment sales & capital markets at Savills. This is because of the possibility of new conflicts erupting, political purges, the rewiring of supply chains, and the contagion arising from Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel.
“While there is a probability that large ticket items may still be transacted for the rest of 2023 to possibly H1 2024, the likelihood of such is lower than the prepandemic decade and institutional investors will likely see a retrenchment in deal counts,” stated Savills. The real estate consultancy had already revised downward its expected property investment volume in Singapore from S$24 billion to S$25 billion to between S$19 billion and S$21 billion.
Nonetheless, given that 2023 will likely be a low point in terms of real estate investment transactions, this situation could help 2024 to record “a strong rebound, barring unforeseen events,” Lake noted.
“Interest rates are likely to start falling in 2024 and global economic growth will pick up, leading investors to conclude that the bottle is half full rather than half empty,” he added.
Meanwhile, Savills Singapore’s Research Head Alan Cheong remains upbeat on Singapore’s property investment market.
“While the global real estate industry may suffer from a host of problems, Singapore has that unique selling point that being a safe haven, there will still be a base level of transactions coming from those, especially the ultrahigh net worth families, seeking to diversify from riskier assets and countries,” he explained.
