APAC Realty’s Jack Chua and Juliet Zhu of MLN Overseas today signed a partnership agreement to provide a range of services to Chinese property buyers.
UPDATED: Singapore-listed real estate brokerage APAC Realty, which operates under the ERA brand, on Wednesday (14 Mar) inked a partnership agreement with MLN Overseas (Singapore), a leading real estate company in China, to bring more wealthy Chinese buyers into Singapore, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur.
In Singapore, APAC Realty will help to market new and resale residential projects as well as commercial units to MLN’s clients. These include luxury condominiums in the Core Central Region such as Martin Modern and the recently launched New Futura.
After sales support will also be provided to help the buyers lease out or resell their units. “We are confident we can offer first-rate real estate services for the clients,” said Jack Chua, executive director and CEO of APAC Realty.
Established 15 years ago, MLN has 16 branches in China and overseas, including Singapore, KL and Bangkok. To date, it has sold 1,600 units across the region to Chinese customers.
Third party research revealed that Chinese buyers spent over US$100 billion (S$131 billion) on overseas properties in 2017. Singapore remains a popular destination for them, according to Juliet Zhu, president and executive director of MLN.
“We are receiving more and more enquiries from Chinese property buyers about the properties in Singapore,” she said.
Chua noted that the top three reasons for continued investment in Singapore property are diversified investment, children’s education and migration.
He shared that foreign property investment in Singapore accounted for 18 percent of total transactions in 2011, but “because of the implementation of the Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty (ABSD), the percentage dropped to about 7.0 percent last year”.
Of this, approximately 30 percent are Chinese nationals, accounting for most of the foreign buyers, Chua said.
Meanwhile, the decline in private property prices was cited as the reason for the resurgent demand. Chua noted that prices in the high-end market have dropped by about 15 percent since 2014, thus negating the impact of ABSD. In addition, property prices in Singapore are not as high as in Shanghai or Hong Kong, he said.
While there hasn’t been a significant slowdown in foreign buying activity after the Chinese government tightened enforcement of capital controls, Chua admitted that “if there were no controls, most of the high-end properties may be bought up by Chinese buyers”.
APAC Realty recently reported a 63 percent jump in net profit to S$25.9 million for the full year ended 31 December 2017.
Check out our review of New Futura, or view other project reviews!
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor at PropertyGuru, wrote this story. To contact him about this or other stories, email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
