A surge of Singapore stories leads the real estate news from around the region today, leading with one of the city’s largest real estate fund managers’ plans for a $720 million hospitality trust.
And investors in the Southeast Asian financial hub might be ready for a chance at overseas deals as new government figures show office and retail rents dropping in the first quarter, as new home sales also headed downhill.
Meanwhile, China’s Dalian Wanda had some rare good news from one of its overseas deals and there are still more stories in today’s roundup from around the region.
ARA Asset Management Plans IPO of $720M in US Hotel Holdings
Real estate investment group ARA Group is spinning off $719.5 million of US hotels under the Hyatt brand into a business trust that it wants to list on the Singapore Exchange (SGX). The proposed listing comes less than five months after the fund manager agreed in December last year to buy a portfolio of 38 hotels from a unit of Lone Star funds.
If the listing is successful, it will be the Singapore bourse’s first hospitality trust focused purely on the US market. It will also be the first new counter on SGX’s Mainboard since the July 2018 listing of foodcourt operator Koufu Group. Read more>>
SG Office Rents Drop 0.6%, Retail Leasing Rates Fall 0.2% in Q1
Rents of office space in the central region of Singapore slipped by 0.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2019 from the previous three months, figures from the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) showed on Friday. The drop was in contrast with the increase of 0.5 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2018.
This was the first quarter-on-quarter decline in office rents since the second quarter of 2017. The price index rose 3.0 per cent for the first quarter – a faster pace of gain compared with the 2.4 per cent increase with the previous quarter. Read more>>
Singapore Developers Boost Launches 80%, Sales Rise 0.01%
According to quarterly figures released by Singapore’s Urban Redevelopment Authority’s (URA) on Friday, developers launched 2,989 units in the city from January through the end of March – up by more than 80 percent compared to Q4’s 1,657 units.
Home buyers, appear unimpressed by surge in buying opportunities, however, with units sold during the quarter totalling 1,838 units, up just 0.01 percent from the 1,836 units sold in the last three months of 2018. Unsold units also rose in the quarter, to 36,839 excluding executive condominium (EC) apartments, from 34,824 units in the previous quarter. Read more>>
Wanda’s Vista Tower Tops Out as Chicago’s Third-Tallest Building
Vista Tower reached its final height on Friday, when construction workers poured concrete to form the Chicago skyscraper’s 101st and final floor.
That marked the highest point of construction in Chicago in more than a decade, and it brought Chicago’s Magellan Development Group closer to its planned spring 2020 completion of what will become the city’s third-tallest skyscraper. Read more>>
Hong Kong Home Completion Rate Drops as Developers Fight Vacancy Tax
The number of new flats built to completion in Hong Kong plunged by 88 per cent to just 1,000 in the first three months of the year, with agents attributing the decline in part to fears among developers over the impact of the government’s planned vacancy tax.
It is the lowest number since the first quarter of 2015, and represents an enormous fall from 8,300 in the October to December period, according to figures released by the Transport and Housing Bureau on Friday. Read more>>
Country Garden Leads $250M Fund-Raising for Tencent Online Medical Venture
China’s Tencent Trusted Doctor, a venture backed by tech giant Tencent Holdings, said it has raised $250 million in a fundraising round, as investors pile into China’s online private healthcare sector.
The fundraising marked the first investment since the entity was formed through a merger of Tencent Doctorwork and Trusted Doctors last year. The investment was led by Country Garden Holdings, Tencent Holdings and Sequoia Capital, Tencent Trusted Doctor said in a statement. Read more>>
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