Abstract
Singapore’s economy was one of the first – and hardest – to
be hit by the global economic slowdown.
This has had serious ramifications
for all major real estate sectors – and exacerbated a deterioration
in
conditions that had begun in Q208. In Q109, home and office prices saw
a record decline of more than
10%. Rents also fell sharply. Some analysts
see the market further contracting by as much as 25% in the
residential
sector. They say it could be even greater in high-end luxury developments.
Data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) show that real estate
transactions in January
were the lowest since URA began keeping records in
June 2007.
There is confidence in the long-term, however. The Urban Land
Institute and
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in May 2009 rated Singapore
second among the top five Asia Pacific
cities (out of a total of 20
surveyed) for property investment in its regional report of Emerging Trends
in
Real Estate.
Prices in the residential sector are likely to slide
further down as newly finished developments enter an
already weak market
reported Jones Lang LaSalle. Rental yields are expected to drop further in
2009 as
economic conditions worsen.
The office sector was responsible
for 30.2% of 2008' s total property investment sales, according to CB
Richard Ellis. In absolute terms, the 2008 figure is 62.4% lower than that of
2007.
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