Daily Briefing: STI gains 6.2% and tops Asian markets; Expect 14,200 new homes for the rest of 2018

And here's why foreign and local developers are still keen to grow their landbank.

From Bloomberg Markets:

Singapore’s Straits Times Index (STI) took the top spot amongst Asian markets and boosted this year’s gain to 6.2% in local currency terms and defeated Vietnam’s VN Index, which plunged 2%.

"The city-state has its three big banks to thank for clinching the top spot across all major equity markets in the continent. On April 30, DBS Group Holdings Ltd., Southeast Asia’s largest lender, reported quarterly profit that beat analyst estimates helped by signs of economic growth and higher U.S. interest rates. Rivals United Overseas Bank Ltd. and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. report in the coming days, and could fuel further gains in the Straits Times Index.

'Singapore’s stock market is very much a reflection of its open economy,' Edward Lim, chief investment officer of Covenant Capital Pte. in Singapore, said by phone. 'It’s really a reflection of the mood in rates and the relatively large exposure that the Singapore stock market has on banks.'

Meanwhile, Vietnam’s benchmark index has been paring advances after a 43 percent surge in the past year. The VN Index has fallen 14 percent from a record high on April 9, as investors take profit and as a spate of local share sales curbed gains. The country’s stock market more than doubled in value in the past year to $174 billion.

Read more here.

From PropertyGuru:

About 29 private residential projects could be launched between the second and fourth quarters of this year, a report from List Sotheby’s International Realty said. This could supply about 14,200 new units, raising concerns of an overheating housing market.

"The report analysed recent en bloc sales and Government Land Sales (GLS) sites, based on the assumption of a period of nine to 12 months for projects to be built on GLS sites to obtain all planning approvals before launching, and a longer period of 15 to 18 months for collective sale sites.

As such, the property consultancy identified 29 sites acquired by developers from mid-2016 to August 2017 that could be launched later this year.

The six sites in the Core Central Region are expected to yield 403 units, the Rest of Central Region’s 13 sites could generate 7,327 units, while 10 sites in the Outside Central Region could supply 6,460 units."

Read more here.

From iCompareLoan via Yahoo! Finance:

There is robust demand from developers to grow their land bank in Singapore by placing bids on prime sites. DBS said that local and foreign developers had poured $1.6b into three residential sites alone.

"A joint venture between SC Global, FEC Properties and New World Development are testing the upper limits for Government Land Sales (GLS) by placing a top bid of $410m or $2,377 per square foot (psf) for the Cuscaden Road site. The SC Global consortium’s bid is 8% higher than the second-highest bidder – Shun Tak Holdings.

Bukit Sembawang Estates, Guocoland and Logan Property put in the subsequent high bids at $2,152 psf, $2.063 psf and $2,050 psf respectively.

It estimates that the break-even for the site is expected to be close to $3,000-$3,100 psf, which implies that the selling price will be upwards of $3,500 psf."

Read more here.