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Even the most luxurious homes in Singapore are now relatively cheap


Even the most luxurious homes in Singapore are now relatively cheap

Still an upbeat investor sentiment in the city

A water show in front of The Shopper at Marina Bay. Vietnamese Photographer / Shutterstock.com
A water show in front of The Shopper at Marina Bay. Vietnamese Photographer / Shutterstock.com

Properties at the upper echelons of Singapore’s residential property market are now cheap and consequently investor-friendly, experts say.

Compared with offerings in London, Hong Kong and New York, current luxury home values in Singapore are cheaper by as much as 165 percent, JPMorgan Singapore property analyst Brandon Lee told CNBC.

This represents a “very attractive” environment for negotiating “block deals” between residential developers and private equity and global property funds, Lee reported, adding that family offices and high net worth individuals are also looking into purchases of multiple apartments.

In fact, values in Singapore are “a joke” next to markets like Monaco and Hong Kong, according to Alexander Karolik Shlaen, CEO of luxury brands and investment adviser Panache Management.

More: Singapore’s ‘plant whisperer’ on why ‘green walls’ are now a thing

Private home prices in Singapore experienced their steepest quarterly drop in seven years, the government revealed yesterday. Analysts believe this decrease could be taking into account delayed discounts offered by developers, which are necessary given the Singaporean government’s strict penalties on units unsold after two years.

However, total property investment sales in Singapore in the third quarter of 2016 grew 16 percent year-on-year to SGD4.61 billion (USD3.4 billion), according to preliminary estimates by Jones Lang LaSalle Singapore. In addition, sales in the city-state totaled SGD 15.41 billion (USD11.3 billion) in the first nine months of the year, compared with SGD14.49 billion over the same period in 2015, preliminary data showed.

The fierce bidding for sites that the Singapore government recently put out for tender attests to the upbeat investor sentiment in the city, Tay Huey Ying, head of research for Jones Lang LaSalle Singapore said. She noted that the recent bidding for a Fernvale Road parcel was “the most intense competition ever seen” for a Government Land Sales plot, with the top three bids separated by a 0.1 percent margin.

Read next: The tender for Singapore’s coveted Fernvale Road site has been won

Source: Property Report