TikTok Owner Bytedance Expands in Singapore and More Asia Real Estate Headlines

Singapore office landlords received some good news today as China’s Bytedance follows through on earlier talk of expanding its presence in the city-state with three-storey lease near Raffles Place.

While the maker of TikTok is enlarging its office footprint, Singapore’s GIC is joining Bill Gates in a bet on self-storage and CapitaLand’s serviced apartment division has decided that this is a good time to expand its network of properties in mainland China.

TikTok Owner Bytedance Leases 3 Floors in One Raffles Quay

ByteDance, the Chinese owner of video app TikTok, is moving to a bigger office in Singapore’s financial district, paving the way for it to make the city-state its beachhead for the rest of Asia.

It has signed an agreement to lease three floors measuring over 60,000 square feet (5,574 square metres) at One Raffles Quay, according to people familiar with the plan. Read more>>

GIC Joins Bill Gates in US Self-Storage Investment

Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC, along with Bill Gates’ Cascade Investment, L.L.C. and other investors have acquired stakes in StorageMart, the largest privately owned self-storage company in the world.

The transaction values StorageMart at an enterprise value of approximately USD $2.7 billion, said StorageMart in a statement. Read more>>

CapitaLand’s Ascott Signs 12 More Properties in China; Enters Austria

Capitaland’s wholly-owned lodging business unit, The Ascott Limited, has secured more than 2,100 new units across 12 properties in China in the last three months.

Revenue from its operating properties in the country have also almost fully recovered to pre-Covid-19 levels, said Ascott in a press statement on Thursday. Read more>>

SG New Private Home Sales Rise for 5th Straight Month in Sept

Developers in Singapore sold 1,329 new private homes in September, 5.8 per cent more than the 1,256 units in August.

It is the highest sales volume notched since July 2018’s 1,724, and marks the fifth consecutive month of increase in monthly sales since the “circuit breaker” in April 2020. The figure is also 4.6 per cent higher than the 1,270 units sold in September 2019. Read more>>

Swire Selling Parking Spaces in Taikoo Shing for HK$3M Each

Swire Properties, the developer of Taikoo Shing, is selling car and motorcycle parking spaces for the first time at the 43-year-old housing project in Quarry Bay, as part of its “strategy to dispose of certain noncore assets”.

A total of 227 car parking spaces and 62 motorcycle parking spaces in Stage 6, comprising residential towers 33, 34 and 35, will be put on sale progressively starting this month, Swire Properties said on Wednesday. Read more>>

Sino Land Sells St George’s Mansions Penthouse for $31M

A Hong Kong buyer snapped up a luxury home in Kowloon for more than HK$71,000 (US$9,160) per square foot, the second-most expensive deal in the past three months, in yet another indication of the allure of the city’s high-end property.

The buyer, “a very rich family” paid over HK$238 million for the 3,330-square-foot penthouse with a 2,933-square-foot balcony at the St George’s Mansions project in Kadoorie Hill, according to Victor Tin, group associate director of sales at Sino Land, a joint developer of the estate. Read more>>

HK Residential Rents Face Deeper Correction Amid COVID-19 Rebound

A deeper correction in Hong Kong’s residential rents lies ahead in the last quarter, property agencies said, as its economic outlook gets gloomier.

Rents fell 1.2 per cent month on month in September to HK$34 (US$4.4) per square foot on average, and have declined by more than 10 percent from a peak in July 2019, Centaline Property Agency, a major Hong Kong agency, said. Read more>>

New Fund by CP Family Office to Invest $120M in SE Asia

Blueprint Forest (BPF), a Bangkok-based multi-family office, is injecting US$120 million into a new fund, 9 Basil, that will invest in South-east Asian enterprises and distressed assets.

In a Thursday press release, BPF said that the new fund will target sectors including financial services, consumer brands, supply chain and real estate, as well as distressed assets. Read more>>

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