Posted by luxuryasiahome on November 25, 2008
Located in Singapore’s most desirable residential enclave, Ardmore 3 is an ultra luxury niche 36-storey development in Ardmore Park. This freehold address offers convenient access to the heart of Orchard Road, while remaining exclusive and retains all the privacy away from the hustle and bustle of the city.
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Posted in For Sale, General, Luxury Property, New Launches | Tagged: Ardmore 3, Ardmore 3 @ Ardmore Park, Ardmore 3 Singapore, Developer Sales, New Launches, Singapore Luxury Homes, Singapore Luxury Homes For Sale, Singapore Property For Sale | Leave a Comment »
Posted by luxuryasiahome on November 25, 2008
The ground breaking for a $1.3 billion mall at Serangoon Central took place on Tuesday.
The six-level project will have net lettable area of about 600,000 sq ft and will be completed by end-2010. It will have a hypermarket, gourmet supermarket, department store, 10-screen cineplex, 500-seat food court and more than 400 specialty shops.
The mall, which has yet to be named, will also feature a 24-hour retail and food and beverage zone. Its basement 2 level will be integrated with a new bus interchange and the Serangoon North East Line and Circle Line MRT stations.
The mall is being developed by Gold Ridge Pte Ltd, whose owners include institutional investors from the US and Europe advised by Pramerica Real Estate Investors (Asia) Pte Ltd. Guthrie Consultancy Services Pte Ltd is the project manager, retail consultant and marketing manager for the development.
Source : Business Times – 25 Nov 2008
Posted in General, Office / Retail Space | Tagged: Gold Ridge Pte Ltd, Guthrie Consultancy Services Pte Ltd, Pramerica Real Estate Investors (Asia) Pte Ltd, Retail Space, Serangoon Central, Serangoon Central Mall, Singapore Retail, Suburban Malls | Leave a Comment »
Posted by luxuryasiahome on November 25, 2008
Low Keng Huat (Singapore) Limited has been awarded a S$295 million construction contract.
The contract is for the building of Serangoon Central Mall, a 4 storey with 2 basement shopping complex and bus interchange at Upper Serangoon Road/Serangoon Central/Serangoon Avenue 2 (Serangoon South Planning Area).
The project is awarded by Gold Ridge Pte Ltd which is owned mainly by institutional investors from USA and Europe. The project is expected to be completed by October 2010.
Total value of ongoing construction projects, including Serangoon Central Mall, is about S$900 million today.
Source : Business Times – 25 Nov 2008
Posted in Construction, General, Office / Retail Space | Tagged: Construction, Gold Ridge Pte Ltd, Low Keng Huat, Serangoon Central, Serangoon Central Mall, Suburban Malls | Leave a Comment »
Posted by luxuryasiahome on November 25, 2008
GuocoLand has signed The KinderWorld Group as a major tenant for an international school in The Canary, an integrated development on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.
The Canary is being developed by a full-owned subsidiary of GuocoLand Ltd.
KinderWorld’s proposed Singapore International School at The Canary is targeted to be operational around end-2009 and marks its further expansion into Vietnam, where it currently has educational facilities in five Vietnamese cities.
GuocoLand will build the three-storey school premises for KinderWorld, which will offer a curriculum ranging from kindergarten to primary school for about 500 students when it reaches full capacity.
The Canary will comprise apartments, a good-class international hotel, a mall, educational facilities (which KinderWorld’s school will be a part of), and a sports complex.
Source : Business Times – 25 Nov 2008
Posted in Developer News, General, Overseas Property | Tagged: Developers, Guocoland, Ho Chi Minh City, The Canary, The KinderWorld Group, Vietnam Property | Leave a Comment »
Posted by luxuryasiahome on November 25, 2008
Retail premises among the hardest hit as businesses struggle to pay rents
COMMERCIAL property in Britain has hit its lowest point in more than 20 years as capital values slump and the economic downturn puts pressure on business rents.
Retail premises are among those hardest hit as Britain’s economy heads for a sharp contraction, with businesses struggling to pay rents and in turn forcing down the value of properties.
Last month alone, commercial property prices dropped by a record 4.3 per cent compared with September, with the market overall falling by a staggering 28 per cent from a June 2007 peak.
Figures from the Investment Property Databank (IPD) have shown that in October, prices for retail, office and industrial property suffered their biggest monthly drop in 22 years.
‘We have seen a pretty dramatic drop off in capital values in the commercial property sector,’ explains Ed Stansfield, property economist at Capital Economics. ‘What’s happened is the economic outlook has taken a big hammering over the last nine months . . . and it’s pushing capital values down.’
The fallout from the downturn has taken a toll on the country’s biggest commercial property companies, including British Land, Capital & Regional (C&R) and Great Portland Estates.
British Land announced last week that the value of its property portfolio has slumped by more than £1 billion (S$2.28 billion) in the past six months.
C&R has warned that its tenants are facing mounting pressure from the financial crisis while Great Portland Estates, which owns numerous properties in London, said that demand from tenants looking for substantial space had dropped sharply.
Tenants are increasingly facing insolvency as the credit crunch in Britain rips through corporate balance sheets. Against this backdrop, C&R said that it has doubled its provisions for tenant defaults to £1.5 million.
Capital Economics expects the commercial sector to continue its decline for some time, with an anticipated floor of 45 per cent below the mid-2007 peak.
‘We think the economy is headed for the worst recession since the 1980s, if not the post war period,’ Mr Stansfield said. ‘It’s going to be pretty widespread.’
According to the IPD, the retail property sector has been hardest hit in terms of monthly falls in capital values, dropping by 4.7 per cent last month.
Property consultant CB Richard Ellis has also tracked a substantial decline in commercial property values, reporting that these had dropped by 4.6 per cent last month.
The CB Richard Ellis Monthly Index suggests that prices have dropped 17.6 per cent in the year to date, as prices are put in line with the gloomy economic outlook for Britain.
According to the property consultant, overall property rents fell 0.5 per cent last month. In Central London however, the figure was 2.5 per cent.
‘More companies are exercising break clauses in leases,’ says Mr Stansfield. ‘They are also re-negotiating rents or moving to get lower rents.’
He said that London had long been considered overpriced, hence the steeper decline in values.
Source : Business Times – 25 Nov 2008
Posted in General, Overseas Property | Tagged: UK commercial property, UK Property | Leave a Comment »
Posted by luxuryasiahome on November 25, 2008
Office rents in London’s West End, midtown Manhattan and Tokyo fell in the third quarter for the first time in almost seven years as the global financial crisis cut demand, CB Richard Ellis Group Inc. said.
The total office occupancy cost in the West End was 139.50 pounds ($248.66) per square foot a year in the 12 months ended Sept. 30, down 5.1 percent from a year earlier, Los Angeles-based CB Richard Ellis said today in its semiannual global-office survey. Rents in London, midtown Manhattan and central Tokyo last fell from a year earlier in January 2002, during the last recession.
Rents fell in the three cities as the economic crisis dampened demand for space among banks and investment companies. Rents worldwide are likely to fall for the rest of this year and the first quarter of 2009 as the financial crisis spreads throughout the world’s economies, Raymond Torto, CB Richard Ellis’s global chief economist, said in an interview.
“London’s West End or places that are showing declines right now are the leading edge of what’s going to happen the next six months, obviously,” Torto said.
Even as financial centers showed declines, office costs in the 172 markets CB Richard Ellis tracks increased 8 percent on average in the past year, almost double the global inflation rate. Three of the five fastest-growing cities were in the Middle East, with costs up the most in Abu Dhabi, with a 95 percent rise.
“You’ve got a lot of places that are not feeling the effects of the financial crisis,” Torto said. “Not every place is a financial center.”
Tokyo, Manhattan
Total office occupancy costs dropped 5.3 percent to $184.26 per square foot annually in central Tokyo, and 9.9 percent to $151.69 in outlying wards of Tokyo, said CB Richard Ellis, the world’s largest commercial real estate brokerage.
In midtown Manhattan, they dropped 2.7 percent to $98.08. Total office occupancy costs are rents plus other service charges by landlords.
Even with the rent decline, London’s West End remained the world’s most expensive office market in the third quarter, CB Richard Ellis said. It was followed by Moscow, where office costs rose 30 percent to $234.73 a square foot, and Hong Kong’s central business district, where they rose 29 percent to $231.59.
Tokyo Gains
Central Tokyo was the fourth most expensive office market in the third quarter, followed by Mumbai’s central business district, with annual occupancy costs of $170.85 a square foot; Dubai, at $156.53; Tokyo’s outer wards; London; Singapore, at $135.13; Hong Kong’s prime districts, at $132.97; and Abu Dhabi.
Among the 50 office markets with the fastest-growing office costs, only nine were in North America in the third quarter, down from 15 when CB Richard Ellis last reported rankings six months ago. “The slowing economic situation in North America has started to dampen occupancy cost growth rates,” CB Richard Ellis said in today’s report.
The Asia Pacific region had the fastest growth in office costs in the third quarter, with an average increase of 26 percent, CB Richard Ellis said. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, had the fastest growth in rents worldwide after Abu Dhabi, with total occupancy costs rising 51 percent to $92.83 in the third quarter, the brokerage said.
“Places like Abu Dhabi or Ho Chi Minh City, there is a theme to why they’re at the top of the list,” Torto said. “The theme is that they’re new places for financial markets. They don’t have a lot of quality space, and the little bit that there is, is wildly bid up.”
Source : Bloomberg – 25 Nov 2008
Posted in General, Office / Retail Space, Overseas Property | Tagged: Japan Property, London Office, New York Office, Office Rental Market, Tokyo Office, UK Property, US Property | Leave a Comment »
Posted by luxuryasiahome on November 25, 2008
Top picks are Japan, Australia, China, HK and Singapore
Asia’s battered property markets are starting to attract strong interest from investors, with Japan, Australia, China, Hong Kong and Singapore among their top picks in the region.
Property fund manager LaSalle Investment Management, which raised a US$3 billion fund in August, expects Hong Kong and Singapore to recover first from the financial turmoil.
Said regional director David Edwards: ‘We are seeing a decline in values throughout the region. There are properties that are being sold at much lower prices than the market’s perception of their values.’
ING Real Estate plans to double its investments in Asia to US$1 billion, with most of its investors in Europe wanting to diversity into the region, said the firm’s Asia-Pacific managing director, Nicholas Wong.
ING invested mostly in China and Japan, he said, and was now marketing a US$750 million fund to build Chinese housing. Several Asian markets were already 30-40 per cent off their peaks, he said.
And a Reuters poll last week found that analysts believe that Hong Kong and Singapore prices are set to fall by at least a fifth in the next year.
‘Most of our clients are from the UK and Europe and traditionally, they invest only at home,’ Mr Wong said. ‘Now, they want global exposure and most of them want to go to Asia for diversification.’
With Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore in recession, Asian developers are battling falling demand and tighter credit, even after efforts by central banks to encourage lending by slashing key rates.
In Hong Kong, the de facto central bank has lowered its base rate twice in the last month, while in China, monetary authorities have cut borrowing costs three times since mid-September.
‘The risk of bankruptcies are still higher throughout Asia and most financial institutions are not out of the woods yet,’ said Kelvin Lau, economist at Standard Chartered Bank. ‘That’s why overall lending conditions have not yet returned to normal.’
In Japan, more than 400 small and medium-sized developers have gone out of business this year as the residential market slowed and as credit dried up. But the tough environment is not stopping property investors from prowling the region for bargains.
‘The present environment is incredibly difficult. As a business, we are taking a cautious approach. But we are still looking,’ said LaSalle’s Mr Edwards.
LaSalle has so far invested US$10 billion in Asia and nearly half the amount is in Japan, he said. The company is also keen on Australia and China, he added.
Other investors were optimistic that some property segments would recover soon. China’s ailing housing market, for instance, may stabilise in about six months and recover in two years, before most other Asian countries, said Cheng Soon Lau, managing director at Invesco Real Estate Asia.
Invesco is planning to invest directly in China, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore, buying office blocks and building housing.
Managers of securities funds are becoming less worried that investors will withdraw money, according to Chris Reilly, director of property for Asia at Henderson Global Investors. ‘Right now, there is really not much redemption,’ he said. ‘The cycle of redemption was more severe in the last 2007 and early 2008, the period when retail investors are quite scared.’
Source : Business Times – 25 Nov 2008
Posted in General, Market Reports, Overseas Property, Property Investment | Tagged: Asia Property, Asia Property Investment, China Property, Henderson Global Investors, Hong Kong Property, ING Real Estate, Invesco Real Estate Asia, Japan Property, LaSalle Investment Management, Property Funds, Property Investment, Singapore Property | Leave a Comment »
Posted by luxuryasiahome on November 25, 2008
Hong Kong’s Sino Land and the mainland’s China Overseas Land & Investment Ltd are among the property stocks offering the best value in Asia, fund manager Henderson Global Investors says.
Chris Reilly, director of property for Asia, said funds run by his company were keen on buying property stocks in Australia, Singapore, China and Hong Kong, after share prices in these countries fell sharply as investors dumped risky assets due to the global financial crisis.
The company also picked Japan Real Estate Investment Corp from Japan’s battered real estate investment trust sector.
‘There is no great rationale for going into emerging markets right now. We are sticking to mature and more stable markets, where values have also fallen. There are more risks in less transparent and emerging markets,’ Mr Reilly said.
Henderson Global, which manages US$1.5 billion worth of investments in Asia, is also keen on Australian property investor Stockland Group and Singapore’s CapitaLand.
Battered property shares in Asia would likely start to recover in the next six to 12 months, thanks to global government efforts to cut interest rates and infuse more liquidity into the financial system, Mr Reilly said. ‘There is some distress in the market right now. Investors are acting very defensively. But there is a sense of opportunism ahead. We will get better values down the line.’
Hong Kong developer Sino Land, whose shares have plunged more than 80 per cent so far this year, remained attractive given its focus on building housing units ‘in times of lower supply’, Mr Reilly said.
Home prices in Hong Kong, which slipped into a recession in the third quarter, will probably drop 20 per cent this year, according to a Reuters poll. The expected price decline would likely drive shares of Sino Land lower, analysts said.
China Overseas Land, the nation’s largest developer by market value, may benefit most from China’s decision to ease rules on buying homes, and its planned spending to boost the economy, Mr Reilly said.
‘We pick China Overseas Land because of its long-term growth prospects and reasonable valuation,’ he said. ‘It is in the best position (to benefit) from the government’s stimulus package.’
Shares of China Overseas Land rallied 12 per cent on Oct 23, the day after the Chinese government announced measures to shore up the country’s ailing property sector. But the stock is still down 45 per cent so far this year.
Beijing last month cut mortgage rates, reduced downpayments for first- time home buyers and cut transaction taxes to stimulate demand for housing. Early this month, China said it would spend US$586 billion to build houses and on other infrastructure projects to spur the economy. – Reuters
Source : Business Times – 25 Nov 2008
Posted in Developer News, General, Market Reports | Tagged: Capitaland, China Overseas Land & Investment Ltd, Developers, Henderson Global, Japan Real Estate Investment Corp, Property Shares, Sino Land, Stockland Group | Leave a Comment »
Posted by luxuryasiahome on November 25, 2008
Blaxland strikes out despite downsizing from $300m planned portfolio
AN Australian private property fund manager that had been expected to buy some $200 million of Singapore industrial properties including eSys Technologies building in Changi North has decided not to proceed with the acquisitions.
Blaxland Funds is said to have put its plans on hold, given current weak market conditions, and is not expected to transact anything here in the near future.
Industry observers reckoned that the current tight funding climate and weak investor sentiment were likely reasons.
Some sources suggested that the deal-breaker was ‘the rapidly changing market conditions’ here.
‘It may have boiled down to making a call on the market. Is this the right time to buy industrial property in Singapore?’ said an industry observer.
‘After doing their due diligence and appraisal, Blaxland decided not to proceed with the transactions,’ he added.
BT understands that Blaxland may have found better-value opportunities emerging in its home market, Australia.
Blaxland Funds Group is a joint venture between its executive staff and The Myer Family Company.
It set up a representative office in Singapore earlier this year and is said to have planned to assemble an industrial property portfolio worth over $300 million initially.
In June, it signed Memoranda of Understanding to purchase five assets on the island for around $200 million. Around August, it was said to have shortlisted two of those properties – eSys Technologies’ building in Changi North and SH Cogent Logistics’ warehouse building at Penjuru Close in Jurong.
Blaxland had paid deposits totalling a few hundred thousand Singapore dollars to the sellers, BT understands. It had to forefeit these deposits when, at the beginning of this month, it decided against proceeding with completing the two transactions.
The SH Cogent Logistics building is a brand-new, five-storey ramp-up warehouse with a lettable area of about 400,000 square feet. The building is on a site with a remaining lease of over 20 years. It received Temporary Occupation Permit this year. The property is about 80-90 per cent occupied. Blaxland was to have paid some $50 million for this property.
The eSys Technologies building, which was to have been sold for more than $20 million, is under five years old. It has a lettable area of about 180,000 sq ft and the balance lease term on the site is also understood to be over 20 years.
eSys Technologies and SH Cogent Logistics were to have leased back their respective properties for five years had the sales to Blaxland proceeded.
Industry sources said that the other three properties Blaxland had inked MOUs for are in Ubi and Changi.
Source : Business Times – 25 Nov 2008
Posted in General, Market Reports, Property Investment | Tagged: Blaxland Funds, Property Funds, Property Investment, Singapore Property | Leave a Comment »
