Property investment sales in Singapore will take a hit in 2020, media reports said. The city-state’s property investment sales has dropped 37 percent to $3.02 billion in the first quarter of 2020 on the back of the Cover-19 pandemic.
According to Cushman & Wakefield, the investment volume for this year is anticipated to reach between $10 billion and $15 billion from $32.87 billion in 2019. The firm in its research report said that drop in interest rates might lead to increased investment activity next year after investor sentiment recovers on the back of the pandemic.
The pandemic has had an impact on investor sentiment in Singapore. Investment sales in the first quarter was largely dominated by the residential sector. The residential sector worth $2.02 billion has doubled from the previous quarter’s investment sales volume, media reports said. In the first quarter, commercial property sales dropped 81 percent to $183.4 million compared to the same period last year.
Christine Li, head of research at Cushman & Wakefield for Singapore and Southeast Asia, said in the firm’s research note, “Big-ticket commercial transactions were absent in the first three months of 2020, a direct result of the Covid-19 pandemic and the rapid sell-off in stock markets across the globe. Sellers were unwilling to lower prices significantly, hoping that the impact on the economy would be temporary and that market confidence would recover rapidly after the pandemic was contained. Meanwhile, buyers were waiting on the sidelines to enter at more attractive prices as it is appearing increasingly likely that the reduction in economic activity from lockdowns will trigger a global recession.”