DBS to Cut Global Office Footprint by 20% and More Asia Real Estate Headlines

Asia’s path out of the pandemic continues to bring a set of mixed real estate headlines as we enter May, with Hong Kong’s housing market showing signs of a resurgence as Singapore’s biggest bank announces plans to cut its office space by one-fifth.

Also in the news today, China home prices held steady in April and Shangri-La is ready to start building its second hotel in Japan.

Singapore’s DBS Says New Office Plans Will Shrink Footprint by 20%

DBS Group will cut office space across its markets by 20 per cent in the next four to five years as it adopts a hybrid work model and redesigns its work spaces to encourage more collaboration, chief executive Piyush Gupta said on Friday (April 30).

South-east Asia’s largest lender plans to give up about 2½ floors, or 75,000 sq ft, out of the dozen floors it occupies in Tower 3 of the Marina Bay Financial Centre in December, Bloomberg reported earlier this month. Read more>>

Hong Kong Home Prices Hit 20-Month High in March

Hong Kong’s private home prices, among the world’s least affordable, climbed to their highest level since July 2019 in March, official data showed on Wednesday, supported by robust demand and a recovering economy.

The prices gained for the third month in a row in March, rising 0.8%, according to the data, compared with a revised 0.86% increase in February. The March price index stood at 388.3, 2.2% lower than the historical high of 396.9 in May 2019. Read more>>

China Home Prices Stay Steady in April Under Property Controls

Chinese new home prices rose again in April, fuelled by hot demand in smaller coastal cities as housing market strength in major centres tapered off due to tighter restrictions, a private survey showed on Saturday.

New home prices in 100 cities rose 0.23% in April from a month earlier, up marginally from 0.2% in March, according to data from China Index Academy, one of the country’s largest independent real estate research firms. Read more>>

Office Downsizing Wave Nearly Complete Says DBS Research

Financial firms are expected to return less office space than DBS Group Research had earlier projected. “(It’s) darkest before dawn. Most of the negative news on major occupiers space rationalisation is out, in our view,” the brokerage said in a report on Friday.

DBS Research estimates that the total return of space by major financial institutions is about 0.5 million square feet (sq ft), which is “manageable” for the office market. This is less than the average annual demand over the past five years, it added. Read more>>

Hong Kong Residential Rents Still 50% More Than NYC

Hong Kong ranked as the world’s most expensive city for prime residential rents in the first quarter, over 50 per cent higher than New York, with top executives of mainland firms likely to fuel further demand.

Prime rents in Hong Kong’s most expensive areas averaged US$6.7 per square foot, meaning a tenant with a budget of US$10,000 per month would be able to rent less than 1,500 square feet in the first quarter this year, according to a survey released by international property consultants Knight Frank on Friday. Read more>>

Shangri-La Announces JV to Build Second Japan Hotel in Kyoto

Shangri-La has entered into a new joint venture with Samty Co Ltd to develop a luxury hotel in Kyoto. The location of the proposed hotel is just north of the Nijo Castle, an UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most popular tourist destinations in Kyoto.

The hotel, which will be Shangri-La’s second hotel in Japan after Shangri-La Tokyo, will be situated just four kilometers north of Kyoto Station, one of the main gateways into the city. Read more>>

May Brings Hong Kong’s Biggest Home Sales Weekend in 7 Months

Buyers piled into Hong Kong’s biggest weekend property sales in seven months, snapping up new homes on offer at three locations across the city over the Labour Day holiday weekend, as they set aside concerns of a flare-up in coronavirus cases to park their investments in fixed assets.

Investors and owner-occupiers bought 379 flats, or 76 per cent of the 500 units on offer across the city as of 8.40pm, according to sales agents. The total tally excluded 10 luxury units which were sold without price guidance, the results of which will be disclosed next week. Read more>>

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