Hongkong Land Says Central Rents Should Stay High and More Asia Real Estate Headlines

At the top of today’s news, the owner of most of the prime sites in Hong Kong’s priciest district remains confident that Central is still a good location, while down in Singapore, home prices continued to slow in September and a developer from the island state adds a new project in Chengdu. Read on for the details on all these stories and more in today’s headline roundup.

Hongkong Land Confident on Future of HK’s Central District

Office rents in Hong Kong’s Central district, already the world’s most expensive, are likely to remain sky high even as more firms are moving out of the city centre in search of cheaper accommodation.

That’s according to Raymond Chow, executive director for commercial property at Hongkong Land, Central’s largest office landlord. Read more>>

Home Price Growth Slows in SG as Cooling Measures Take Hold

Private home prices in Singapore barely managed to hold on to gains for the third quarter as the latest round of property cooling measures implemented on July 6 took their toll, flash estimates from the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) on Monday (Oct 1) showed.

Prices of private residential properties inched up 0.5 per cent in the July to September period from the previous three months – to 149.7 points on the private residential property price index – a sharp slowdown from the 3.4 per cent rise in the second quarter and a 3.9 per cent increase in the first quarter. Read more>>

Singapore’s Hong Leong Announces Second Chengdu Project

Hong Leong Holdings, the privately held property development and investment arm of Hong Leong Group, on Monday announced the development of its second residential project in Chengdu, Springdale Park.

The exclusive 567-unit low density housing development is expected to be completed in 2020 and an estimated RMB 1.4 billion ($280 million) has been invested in this project. Read more>>

GIC Tops Ranks of PE Investors in Europe for Q3

Sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte Ltd has beat private equity giants from New York and Boston after it was crowned as the largest foreign PE investor in Europe in Q2 with US$14.3b (S$19.57b) in investments, according to a report by PitchBook.

Although the bulk of Europe’s 804 PE deals in Q2 were driven by homegrown firms, non-European investors are steadily zeroing in on European targets as they diversify their portfolios, the report noted. Read more>>

Wyndham Hotels to Add 29 India Locations Within Five Years

Global hospitality major Wyndham Hotels & Resorts is looking to add 29 hotels with 3,400 rooms in the next three to five years across India as part of its expansion plans.

The company currently has 37 operational hotels in India with close to 3,400 rooms under its four brands — Ramada by Wyndham, Ramada Encore by Wyndham, Days by Wyndham and Howard Johnson by Wyndham. Read more>>

Ascendas-Singbridge Acquires SG Data Centre

Sabana Shari’ah Compliant Industrial Real Estate Investment Trust (Sabana Reit) is selling a data centre in Tai Seng to the government-linked Ascendas-Singbridge Group, with the manager citing its strategy of divesting under‐performing and mature assets.

The manager inked a conditional sale and purchase agreement on Wednesday to sell Geo‐Tele Centre for S$99.6 million to a trust, it said. Ascendas-Singbridge, which is jointly owned by state entities Temasek Holdings and JTC Corp, identified itself as the buyer on Thursday. Read more>>

LaSalle Buys Japanese Shed to Add to Logiport Portfolio

Global real estate investment manager, Lasalle Investment Management, has acquired a multi-tenanted, modern logistics facility in Amagasaki City, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. The transaction was made on behalf of LRF, a private fund, and LaSalle Logiport REIT. Upon completion of the acquisition, the facility will be named Logiport Amagasaki.

The facility has a gross floor area of 3.03 million sq ft and a net rentable area of 2.33 million sq ft. It is 25 min to Osaka’c central business district, and is close to the Kansi, Kobe, and Itami airports, as well as the Osaka and Kobe seaports. Read more>>

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