Hong Leong, GuocoLand Make Top Bid in SG Land Sale and More Asia Real Estate Headlines

A residential land sale in Singapore drew just two bids as developers tread carefully into a cooling market, with that story leading Mingtiandi’s headline roundup today. Also in the news, Airtrunk opens the first phase of Malaysia data centre and Singapore hotel rates slide as visitor numbers dwindle.

Hong Leong-GuocoLand JV Makes Top Bid in SG Land Sale as Developers Grow Cautious

A joint venture between Hong Leong Group and GuocoLand placed the top bid of S$497 million ($373 million) in a government tender for a private residential site in Singapore’s Queenstown area as just one other developer tendered for the 460-home project.

In Pasir Ris on the upper east coast, an executive condominium (EC) plot in Jalan Loyang Besar fetched a record-high land price for ECs, but attracted only four bids. Previous EC land tenders pulled in many more developers. Read more>>

AirTrunk Opens 150MW Malaysia Data Centre

Australian hyperscale data centre specialist, AirTrunk has commenced operations at its first facility in Malaysia, with the official opening the first phase of a 150 megawatt hyperscale data centre in Johor Bahru.

AirTrunk JHB1 has a design power usage effectiveness (PUE) ration of 1.15, and features the company’s first deployment of direct-to-chip liquid cooling technology alongside traditional indirect evaporative cooling and high-density racks. Read more>>

Singapore Hotel Rates Fell to One-Year Low in June

Average room rates (ARR) at Singapore hotels fell slightly sequentially in June to the lowest in a year, as international visitor arrivals marked a third straight month of declines, Singapore Tourism Board data showed on Friday.

ARR in February slipped to S$268.87, down 3.9 per cent from the preceding month’s S$279.87. It was up a marginal 0.4 per cent on the year – lowest since the year-ago period’s S$267.84. Read more>>

Swire Properties Christens Project in Shanghai’s Lujiazui

Swire Properties on Thursday announced that it has named its mixed-use development in the Yangjing area of Shanghai’s Pudong district Lujiazui Taikoo Yuan, with the project se3t to open in phases from 2027.

Comprising grade A offices, a shopping mall and a hotel, along with cultural and event spaces, the project is Swire’s first mainland China development to include residential, featuring both condominiums and serviced apartments. Read more>>

BDx Opens First Phase of Indonesia Data Centre

BDx Indonesia, a joint venture of BDx Data Centers, Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, and Lintasarta, has announced the successful completion of Phase 1 of its AI campus, CGK4, in Jatiluhur. The facility is designed to be Indonesia’s largest renewable-powered AI data center park, capable of scaling up to 500 megawatts.

CGK4 is equipped with advanced features such as high power density, liquid cooling technology, and high-speed connectivity to support the demanding workloads of artificial intelligence applications. The campus also prioritizes security with eight layers of protection and a dedicated on-site team. Read more>>

Chinese Developer Refunding Homebuyer Deposits for Unfinished Project

A Chinese property developer is giving back homebuyers the deposit they paid for apartments in a project it was unable to finish as part of a housing return programme coordinated by the local authorities, official media reported.

The refund coordinated by the government of the city of Nanjing is believed to be the first such case in China, the New Beijing News reported this week, and could set a precedent for other cities and developers to resolve the problem of unfinished homes that has dogged the real estate sector. Read more>>

Government Land Sales Fall 38% as China Housing Slump Continues

China’s property developers have slowed their land grab as a slowdown in home sales continued in the industry, deterring their appetite to invest or expand their land bank.

Land purchases by mainland China’s 100 largest developers declined by 38 per cent in the first seven months of this year to a combined 430.7 billion yuan (US$59.6 billion), compared with the same period last year. The rate of decline picked up by 2.2 percentage points compared to the first half of this year, according to a report published on Thursday by the China Index Academy. Read more>>

Frasers Hospitality Trust Sees Singapore Revenue Dented by Currency Strength

Frasers Hospitality Trust (FHT) had mixed performance in revenue per available room (RevPAR) across its markets for the nine months ended June, indicated its business update on Thursday (Aug 1). The trust had a 7.2 per cent year-on-year drop in 9M RevPAR in Singapore, with occupancy down six percentage points.

“This was largely due to the easing of pent-up travel demand, cost inflation and a relatively strong Singapore dollar affecting inbound travel. Notably, inbound travel from China has yet to fully recover to pre-pandemic levels,” the trust said. Read more>>

Tune in again soon for more real estate news and be sure to follow @Mingtiandi on X, or bookmark Mingtiandi’s LinkedIn page for headlines as they happen.