The week in real estate: MahaNakhon lights, smart cities, Pokemon GO, and more

Friday’s round-up of real estate news from around the world

Welcome to our weekly market overview, where we select the top stories and best new research from the past week.

New research out this week

CBRE: Bangkok Overall Market View Q2 2016

The overall Bangkok condominium market continued to be slow in Q2 2016.
Demand for luxury condominium units will become much more selective while demand for low end condominium units is largely constrained as a result of the economic downturn and buyers’ inability to get a mortgage loan.

Read the research here.

Colliers International: UK Property Snapshot August 2016

This report covers retail, offices, industrial and residential real estate in the UK. While a marked deterioration was predicted as a result of the EU referendum, hard economic evidence has been mixed.

Read the report here.

Country News

Thailand

This Monday hundreds of people gathered in the streets and from carefully selected viewing points to watch the MahaNakhon Bangkok Rising: The Night of Lights.

The show was to celebrate the skyscrapers completion.

Speaking of the buildings striking architecture, Kipsan Beck from Pace, the developers behind MahaNakhon, told Property Report:

“The form of MahaNakhon interestingly is supposed to reflect on some level the chaos and the disorder that we see in Bangkok street life. In some way, that chaos is what actually makes Thailand and Bangkok that charming.”

If you missed the live event, it can be watched here:

China

Shanghai has “smart city” intentions, according to a “master plan” unveiled by the Shanghai municipal government last week.

Irene Wang, CBRE Eastern China consulting head, said. “Figuring out how to optimize new structural demands and create a better life for people in the city will become the new direction for real estate planning and projects in the future.”

Also in Shanghai news this week was the mass reaction to speculation over government plans to impose tightening measures on Shanghai’s overheating housing market. Home hunters embarked on a panic property buying spree resulting in a 93 percent sales growth, according to data from the Shanghai Homelink Real Estate Agency. A government website was “crippled” in the process.

The South China Morning Post reported that some enterprising couples are even applying for a divorce, in order that they might secure the maximum loans that individual households are entitled to.

Shanghai government have officially denied this speculation.

Singapore

For the first time in two years, the Singaporean government has raised development charges on sites meant for non-landed residential projects.

The charges, levied by the Ministry of National Development on property developers and reassessed every six months, will increase by 2.7 percent on average throughout the country. Seventy-nine sectors in the city-state will have the same rate schedule as before, while 39 sectors will experience hikes anywhere between 5 and 12 percent.

Trends

Pokemon GO

Despite many people left nonplussed by the idea of stomping around town looking for imaginary monsters, it has been hard to ignore the buzz surrounding Pokemon GO.

While Property Report wrote back in July how the augmented reality game may be causing fluctuations in real estate prices in the US, with the launch in Asia complete, JLL’s’ The Investor entered the conversation this week regarding Asian real estate, and the “real societal phenomenon” of the game.

“While it remains far-fetch to consider that placing Pokestops and Gyms will add any asset value, the increased footfall and traffic allow property owners and developers a chance to cash in,” says Takeshi Akagi, Head of Research, JLL Japan.

“Because the tangible side of real estate is physically rooted in the land, any sort of additional value attached (i.e. proximity to train stations, aesthetics of the building, adequate utilities, etc.) is inherently part of its overall property valuation.”

Overall it seems the game should be embraced by businesses, particularly retailers and restaurants, which have seen increased business with proximity to PokeStops and PokeGyms. Most notably, via it’s sponsorship of the game, McDonald’s Japan has seen its first profit in two years.

If you are still not convinced as to the significance of the game, watch this footage from 23 August which sees a stampede of people in Taiwan trying to catch a rare Pokemon called a Snorlax:

Source: Property Report