Shenzhen’s housing market might be on the way back up as mortgage rates come down
Banks just across the border from Hong Kong have started lowering mortgage rates as quantitative easing starts seeping in China’s residential markets offering developers hope of a recovery after a year of tight monetary policy. Further south, the tiny city-state of Singapore succeeded in beating all other contenders to become Asia’s biggest source of cross-border real estate investment in 2018, and Hong Kong’s Link REIT is going green by becoming the first listed real estate trust to issue a green convertible bond. All these stories and more await you in Mingtiandi’s roundup of news from around the region.
Shenzhen Banks Become First in China’s Megacities to Ease Mortgage Rates
Mortgage rates in Shenzhen have begun to creep down, in a sign that the strict property controls holding house prices in check in mainland China’s biggest cities may be starting to loosen.
Some of the southern city’s banks have tentatively lowered their borrowing costs for homeowners in the last few days, making Shenzhen the first of China’s so-called tier-one cities to bring down the prohibitively expensive rates. Analysts said lenders in other megacities may follow suit. Read more>>
Singapore Tops Asian Outbound Real Estate Investment in 2018
Singapore-based investors ended 2018 in top position as the most active group of offshore real estate investors as it allocated $21.6 billion in capital, up from $20.9 billion in 2017.
Total Asian outbound investment declined by 36 percent year on year to $53.8 billion in 2018, driven primarily by re-allocation of portfolios by Chinese investors. Singapore accounted for its 40 percent or $21.6 billion.
“We expect the export of capital to continue in 2019, in view of the modest outlook in the domestic market,” Yvonne Siew, executive director of global capital markets at CBRE Asia Pacific, said. Read more>>
Link REIT First Real Estate Trust to Issue Green Convertible Bond
Link REIT, Asia’s biggest property investment trust, is selling a HK$ five billion ($640 million) green convertible bond, making it the world’s first real estate company to issue such a bond.
In a filing to Hong Kong stock exchange, Link Asset Management, the manager of Link REIT, proposed to sell the five-year paper with a 0.8 to 1.6 percent coupon. The bond was expected to be priced on or around Thursday. Read more>>
Chinese Property Buyers Are Now Leaving Australia
As real estate agent Adam Wong works through Australia’s worst property downturn in decades, he’s also found himself at the mercy of China’s slowing economy.
In Wong’s core market of Chatswood, a suburb north of Sydney’s harbor bridge where a third of residents claim Chinese ancestry, his sales have slumped by as much as half from their peak. That’s reflected in recent government data showing China is no longer Australia’s biggest foreign investor amid a plunge in property purchases.
“There are two main factors behind the drop,” said Wong, who estimates 90 percent of his sales in Chatswood are to Chinese buyers. “The first is people not being able to get the money out of China, and from mid-2017 China’s economy started to slow and that also had an effect.” Read more>>
Evergrande Vehicle Business Has Had a Car Crash of a Year
China’s second-largest property developer Evergrande expects its health unit to record a net loss of RMB 1.4 billion ($209 million) for last year, thanks to its investment in struggling electric car startup Faraday Future.
While the health business of Evergrande Health Industry Group “is expected to be stable,” with a net profit of around RMB 300 million, Evergrande Health’s new energy vehicle business is expected to record a net loss of RMB 1.7 billion last year, according to a recent stock exchange filing.
Evergrande Health blamed the result on “losses in its investment in Smart King.” Evergrande agreed in 2018 to invest $ two billion over three years in Smart King, the entity that controls Faraday Future. Read more>>
Guests Say a Final Goodbye to Hong Kong’s Excelsior Hotel
The lobby of The Excelsior Hong Kong hotel is bustling with guests, luggage in tow, as they check in and out. Diners head to the second floor for dim sum at Yee Tung Heen, down to the basement for classic pub food at the Dickens Bar, or to enjoy lunch with a stunning view over Victoria Harbour at ToTT’s and Roof Terrace.
The four-star waterfront hotel, in the Hong Kong Island shopping mecca of Causeway Bay, has been extra busy since it was announced in August that its doors will close on March 31 after 46 hospitable years. The building will be reduced to rubble to make way for yet another neighbourhood office block. Read more>>
Tune in again tomorrow 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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