Chinese gambling is making Manila real estate a good bet
Any property investment has an element of risk, but games of chance appear to have become a primary driver of Manila’s real estate market, as China’s gambling fans take up nearly a third of the Filipino capital’s new office space and make bulk purchases of new condos. Also in the news today, Singapore is making available a mixed-use site near the Malaysian border, and Evergrande boss Xu Jiayin seems to be cashing in on his own penchant for gambling as the developer’s personal wealth once again makes him China’s richest man, displacing Jack Ma. Read on for all these stories and more.
Mainland Gaming Firms Lease 30% of New Manila Office Space
The Chinese passion for betting has become a major driver of the Philippine property market. The country has become a magnet for Chinese online gambling operators, barred from setting up shop at home and stifled in Macau by measures aimed at curbing the spending of wealthy mainlanders.
Warmer relations between Beijing and Manila under President Rodrigo Duterte have underpinned the influx; Chinese gaming firms took up 30 per cent of the 775,000 square metres of office space built in the Philippine capital last year. Read more>>
Singapore Puts 2.75 Hectare Woodlands Mixed-Use Site Up for Sale
A 2.75 hectare white site in Woodlands Regional Centre has been released for sale by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) under the reserve list of the second half 2018 Government Land Sales programme.
The mixed-use site has a maximum permissible gross floor area of 115,747 square metres, with at least 45,000 square metres of this to be set aside for office use. The remaining GFA can be for additional office, retail, entertainment and residential uses, with a maximum GFA of 33,000 square metres for commercial use, excluding office and commercial school uses. Read more>>
Evergrande’s Xu Jiayin Pushes Jack Ma Out of Spot as China’s Richest Man
With personal wealth of $36.7 billion, Hui Ka Yan, chairman of real estate developer Guangzhou Evergrande Group, has become the richest man in China.
Hui’s fortune puts him ahead of Alibaba chairman Jack Ma ($35.4 billion) and Tencent founder Pony Ma Huateng ($35.3 billion), according to the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List. China’s three richest men currently rank respectively 20th, 21st and 22nd in the global rankings. Read more>>
Analysts Predict 2019 Mainland Property Slowdown
China’s massive property market is expected to cool further in 2019, with smaller price rises and falling home sales adding to pressure on the world’s second-largest economy, a Reuters poll showed.
Smaller cities, which have seen sharper price gains this year, may face greater risks of a slump as economic activity slows and financing conditions remain tough for smaller developers. China’s average residential property prices are forecast to rise 2 percent in the first half of 2019 from a year earlier, and just 0.5 percent for the full year, a survey of 16 property analysts and economists showed. Read more>>
Singapore Condo Prices Bounced Back in November
Resale prices of private non-landed homes in Singapore increased in November, following three straight months of declines after property cooling measures were introduced in July, according to flash estimates by real estate portal SRX Property.
Condominiums and private apartment resale prices strengthened by 0.2 percent last month from October. That followed the 0.3 percent drop in October, a figure revised from an earlier estimated decline of 0.4 percent. Read more>>
JustCo Leases First Sydney Space
JustCo, the Asian co-working space backed by Singapore-based developer Frasers Property and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, GIC, is poised to open its first Australian office.
Market rumours suggest JustCo has signed a deal with Fivex to take 4,200 square metres of space at the new tower going up behind 276 Flinders Street on the corner of Elizabeth Street. JustCo is understood to be paying $600 per square metre for the space. Read more>>
India’s Embassy Group Looking for New Bangalore Sites
Realty firm Embassy Group will invest about 20 billion rupees ($278 million) to complete its ongoing housing projects and is looking to buy land or form joint ventures for expanding its presence in Bengaluru as well as other major cities, a senior company official said. Bengaluru-based Embassy Group’s head of residential business, Reeza Sebastian, said the company is also considering entering the senior living housing segment and adopting pre-fab construction technology.
Embassy Group, which is India’s leading developer of commercial real estate, has completed 12 million square feet of housing projects and is currently developing around 10,000 units across six projects — five in Bengaluru and one in Chennai. Read more>>
Tune in again on Monday for more news, and be sure to follow @Mingtiandi on Twitter, or bookmark Mingtiandi’s LinkedIn page for headlines as they happen.
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