Hong Kong Home Prices Rise for First Time Since March and More Asia Real Estate Headlines

Home prices rise in Hong Kong’s secondary market for the first time since March, with that story leading today’s headline roundup. Also in the news, sentiment brightens among Singapore’s property bosses and SGX-listed Elite UK REIT sells an office building in northern England.

Hong Kong Resale Home Prices Rise for First Time Since March

Hong Kong’s lived-in home prices rose in October, according to official data, arresting a five-month decline after an interest rate cut and eased mortgage rules unveiled by Chief Executive John Lee.

Secondary home prices increased 0.62 percent to a reading of 290.1 in October from 288.3 in September, according to data from the Rating and Valuation Department. Read more>>

Singapore Property Players More Optimistic in Q3

Property sentiment among Singapore real estate honchos finally turned the corner in the third quarter of 2024, thanks to easing interest rates and a brighter economic outlook.

The finding comes after six straight quarters of neutral to below neutral sentiment, according to a survey by the National University of Singapore’s Institute of Real Estate and Urban Studies. Read more>>

Elite UK REIT Sells Office Building for $4M

Elite UK REIT has entered a contract to divest Hilden House, an office building in Warrington, England, for a sale consideration of £3.3 million ($4.2 million).

The price represents a 6 percent premium to the property’s valuation of £3.1 billion as of 30 June, based on an independent valuation by CBRE. The sale contract will be subject to conditions precedent, the Singapore-listed trust’s manager said Wednesday. Read more>>

Singapore Project Awarded to GuocoLand Consortium on $260M Bid

GuocoLand has won the tender for a residential site at Faber Walk with a bid of nearly S$349.9 million ($260.4 million). The tender was jointly put forward by GuocoLand with TID Residential, an indirect subsidiary of Hong Leong Investment Holdings and a deemed substantial shareholder of GuocoLand. The third joint venture party is Intrepid Investments, also controlled by Hong Leong Investment Holdings.

According to GuocoLand in its filing to the Singapore Exchange, it owns a 50 percent stake in the venture. TIDR and Intrepid hold 40 and 10 percent respectively. Read more>>

Incarcerated Evergrande Founder Barred From Luxury Spending

A Chinese court has imposed spending restrictions on beleaguered developer China Evergrande and its founder Xu Jiayin after the company failed to comply with payment obligations.

Under the order issued by the Guangzhou Nansha District People’s Court, both Evergrande and Xu are barred from spending in high consumption areas that are not “necessities of life or business”, according to an exchange filing on Tuesday. Chinese media outlet Guandian reported earlier that Xu had been hit with spending curbs before. Read more>>

Hong Kong’s Chow Tai Fook Reports 20% Drop in Revenue

China’s largest jewellery retailer, Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group, saw revenue plunge 20.4 percent in the half-year to the end of September, the biggest drop for the period since 2016, as the world’s No.2 economy slows and record-high gold prices dent luxury spending.

Revenue for the group, the biggest listed arm of billionaire Henry Cheng’s business empire, was HK$39.4 billion ($5 billion) for the period, the company said. Profit fell 44.4 percent to HK$2.6 billion, mainly due to losses from revaluation of gold loan contracts amid volatile prices. Read more>>

Australia’s Macquarie Initiates Coverage of Singapore REITs

Macquarie Research initiated coverage on 11 Singapore REITs that it prefers amid a higher-for-longer interest rate environment. It named top picks including data centre and industrial names, with an “outperform” rating on nine out of the 11 it listed.

S-REITs are trading at levels yielding around 6 percent, close to the troughs seen before the US Federal Reserve cut interest rates. Macquarie said there is potential for an upside of 20 to 60 percent if the economic outlook improves. Read more>>

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