The en bloc market continues to dominate property investment sales in Singapore.
Driven by en bloc residential transactions, Singapore’s investment sales market extended its robust performance in the second quarter of 2018, with preliminary investment volume up 11.4 percent year-on-year to $10.308 billion, according to a CBRE report.
This brings the investment tally for the first half of 2018 to $20.318 billion, which corresponds to 57 percent of annual investment sales posted last year.
More: Property Investment Sales To Hit $46 Billion In 2018
In Q2, 15 residential collective sale sites were transacted, taking the tally for the first half of the year to 32 deals worth $9.689 billion. This is already higher compared to the 26 collective sales worth $8.12 billion registered for the whole of 2017.
Meanwhile, developers from Hong Kong resumed land acquisition in the city-state in Q2 with their sights set on the residential sector, following three quarters of muted purchasing activity.
Looking ahead, CBRE expects investment sales for the second half of 2018 to be buoyed by Government Land Sales sites, en bloc residential transactions and a few likely en bloc office deals in the pipeline.
“Commercial investment volume will likely make a comeback in the next six months,” the consultancy said.
CBRE noted that while most of the office deals registered in Q2 were bulk purchases of strata-titled units, the outlook for en bloc office assets is still favourable.
This comes as investors remain positive of the office market’s growth prospects this year, despite the existing low yields.
With this, Desmond Sim, CBRE research head for Singapore and Southeast Asia, said he will not be surprised to see total investment volume for 2018 hover within the same region as last year.
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Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this or other stories, email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
