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Sep 18, 2007

Property investment sales may hit record $50b this year

By Fiona Chan, Property Reporter

MAJOR property deals in Singapore are set to reach an all-time high this year, according to property consultancy CB Richard Ellis (CBRE).

It predicted that a record $50 billion in investment property sales would be done by year-end. These are transactions above $5 million each.

CBRE said in a report yesterday that $37.91 billion worth of such sales have already been recorded since January, already surpassing last year's total of $30.56 billion by 24 per cent.

CBRE's prediction has been raised from an earlier forecast in June, when it said it expected $35 billion worth of investment deals.

The current pace of deals, however, has led it to raise its expectations by a substantial amount, Mr Jeremy Lake, CBRE's executive director for investment properties, said.

Between June and September, $12.73 billion worth of investment transactions were carried out.

A quarter of these were in the public sector, where major deals included the $1.69 billion sale of a commercial site along Beach Road and the sale of two Anson Road office sites for $629.13 million in total.

Collective sales also remained strong for much of the third quarter, generating $1.74 billion in deals, said Mr Lake.

This helped the residential segment take the lion's share of investment sales so far this year. Sales of residential properties accounted for 63 per cent of total sales, or $23.79 billion in all.

Offices made up 24 per cent, or $9.23 billion so far this year, while industrial properties contributed 4 per cent, or $1.51 billion.