R&F Pulls Plug on 10,000-Home Brisbane Project and More Asia Real Estate Headlines

In today’s roundup of regional news headlines, China’s R&F Properties scraps a high-profile residential project in Brisbane, Hong Kong developers throw their weight behind Beijing’s preferred candidate for chief executive, and home prices in Asia’s most expensive cities ease after last year’s strong growth.

Guangzhou R&F Pulls Plug on 10,000-Home Brisbane Project After Five Years

It was the supremely ambitious project that promised to utterly transform the skyline of the Brisbane suburb of Springfield. The A$6.3 billion ($4.7 billion) scheme, unveiled by Chinese-owned R&F Property Australia with much fanfare five years ago, aimed to deliver up to 10,000 new apartments in the fast-growing satellite city.

But the proposed development, which was supposed to arise across a prime 31 hectare (76.6 acre) site overlooking the ritzy Greg Norman-designed Brookwater Golf Course, has now fallen in a heap. Read more>>

Hong Kong Developers Pledge Allegiance to China’s Candidate

Hong Kong’s tycoons threw their support behind the city’s leading chief executive candidate — reportedly Beijing’s preferred option for the job — in their latest show of loyalty to China.

A slew of property moguls on Thursday endorsed John Lee, who resigned as chief secretary this week, including the leaders of Sun Hung Kai Properties, CK Group, Henderson Land Development and New World Development. The families running those empires have a combined fortune in excess of $100 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Read more>>

China Lets Evergrande Creditors Sue Locally to Recoup Debt

Several Chinese lenders have been told that they can file legal cases against embattled property giant China Evergrande in local courts, in an apparent easing of a restriction that required all such lawsuits to be handled in a single court, according to people familiar with the matter.

The move may help onshore creditors gain control of assets ahead of a looming debt restructuring. At least three lenders in Zhejiang province and Shandong province were told by courts last month that they could file the cases against the developer in their own jurisdictions rather than to a court in Guangzhou, where Evergrande has been based for decades, said the people, asking not to be identified discussing a private matter. Read more>>

Home Prices in Asia’s Priciest Cities Are Falling

Some of Asia Pacific’s most expensive housing markets are starting to cool after last year’s breakneck growth.

Private home prices have begun falling in Sydney and Hong Kong, while values in Singapore barely rose last quarter, as buyers wary of rising interest rates and economic headwinds choose to sit on the sidelines. Read more>>

Singapore Mega-Condo May Try Again for En-Bloc Sale

Owners at the 314-unit Kensington Park Condominium in Serangoon Gardens are once again eyeing a collective sale, nearly four years after their previous efforts at a billion-dollar price tag, according to the Business Times.

At least 80 percent of the owners have consented to the potential deal this time round, and the marketing agent is understood to be CBRE. But there is no indication yet of whether and when a tender will be launched. Read more>>

Chinese Property Firms’ Bond Issuances Fell Sharply in Q1

Bond issuances by Chinese property developers shrank in the first quarter of 2022.

Major developers issued offshore bonds worth only RMB 35.5 billion ($5.6 billion) in the first three months of the year, which translates into a year-on-year decline of 68 percent, said BRI, the research arm of Beike, China’s largest online property broker. Altogether with onshore issuances, Chinese property firms raised RMB 173.3 billion in this period, a year-on-year decline of 43 percent. Read more>>

Frasers Hospitality Trust Up More Than 7% on Talk of Privatisation

Talk of a possible privatisation sent the stapled securities of Frasers Hospitality Trust climbing in Friday trade. Its price shot up as high as S$0.615 ($0.45) at 1.18pm, an increase of S$0.045 or 7.9 percent over its last closing price, with close to 5.2 million securities changing hands.

The surge came about after Bloomberg reported shortly after 1pm that the hotel and serviced residence trust was considering a plan to go private amid concerns that the price of its stapled securities does not reflect the company’s value. Read more>>

Chinese Developers See Uncertain Future as Downturn Drags On

After suffering through a bruising property market downturn, the Chinese developers still standing are predicting a starkly different future from their hard-charging days of the past.

Last week, at least two dozen Chinese real estate companies whose shares trade in Hong Kong failed to file audited financial results for 2021 by a 31 March deadline, according to data compiled by CreditSights, Nomura and a review of exchange filings. Those developers that managed to do so painted a sober picture of their challenges as new home sales continue to decline, selling prices tumble and funding remains hard to come by. Read more>>

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