Views
Opinion and insight on the latest developments in the Asia Pacific economy and real estate markets from Savills leaders and sector experts and also from some of the industry’s most experienced and perceptive players.
Explore the real estate landscape in 2024 with insights from Savills experts across mature markets like Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan.
Explore the evolving landscape of Hong Kong real estate in 2023 and the anticipated challenges in 2024. From the impact of higher interest rates to the transformation of retail due to e-commerce, discover how technological disruption and changing consumer behavior shape the market.
Discover the key risks that real estate investors face in the current environment. Understand the categories of structural, cyclical, and market risks and gain insights into how to navigate the complex landscape for success.
The global economy is set to be pretty rocky in 2023 and Asia Pacific is not going to escape, even though we look relatively strong compared with other regions; rising interest rates and inflation will impact all real estate investors.
A supportive business environment, constant innovation and strong rule of law are making Singapore a hub for family offices, which will lead to a host of opportunities.
China’s continued battle with covid is suppressing growth and making foreign investors nervous, however, targeted support for the property market and new economy sectors are encouraging domestic players.
Japan has not escaped the fallout from these events such as Pandemic and War, however, the outlook for Japanese real estate is strong and stable going forward.
A few weeks ago, Tesla chief executive Elon Musk told the firm’s white collar workers that they must return to the office, or face the sack. Musk’s frustrations are shared by many business owners, and their landlords.
We have been hearing a lot more about environmental, social and governance (ESG) in the real estate industry over the last few years but the concepts which lie behind it have been germinating for decades.
The spiralling cost of living, driven by rising oil and gas prices, supply chain disruption and the effects of low interest rates, is causing sleepless nights in treasuries and households across the world.
Singapore is developing as a centre for digital headquarters, complementing its strong position as one of the key centres for corporate headquarters in the Asia Pacific region.
The Japanese logistics sector has been booming over the past few years, with steadily growing demand pushing rental levels higher, and also absorbing the large supply coming to the market.
Pandemic restrictions and geopolitical worries did not hold back Asia Pacific real estate investors this year, which should mean that any improvement in 2022 will be greeted by more investor optimism.
Chinese developer Evergrande is crumbling slowly under the weight of its liabilities, all $305 billion of them. It has been selling some of its many subsidiaries, including a home furnishings joint venture, but is still behind on interest payments.
In the early 2000s, it took more than an hour to travel between the centre of Ho Chi Minh City and its outer districts. Today, an hour’s travel might get you 40km to second-tier provinces such as Dong Nai or Long An. As a consequence, new urban areas have grown up in these districts.
Inflation fears are not new; real estate investors have been citing it as a potential macro-economic risk in various investment intentions surveys for some years.
In common with markets all over the world, South Korea has seen accelerating demand for data during the COVID-19 pandemic, as consumers turned to online shopping and business users came to rely on video conferencing to communicate with staff and clients.
Over the past 16 months we have seen cities all over the world become ghost towns, as lockdowns designed to combat the coronavirus have been imposed by governments and people have stayed away from crowded centres.
Not that long ago, logistics real estate was considered pretty standard; delivering big basic sheds for clients. This is no longer the case and you can argue that we’re actually ahead of the pack in using technology.
In a chaotic year for, well, everything, real estate investment in Asia Pacific suffered, but it did not suffer as badly as in other regions.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the measures taken by governments to contain it have severely damaged economic growth the world over and Asia has by no means escaped unscathed.
Vietnam is preparing well for the post-pandemic upswing and is determined to be a leader in the recovery.
It’s not easy valuing real estate in today’s market; movement restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic are the main difficulty, meaning valuers simply can’t travel to assess buildings first-hand.
The COVID-19 pandemic has driven us into uncharted waters and the office sector seems to be further adrift than most.
A lot has been written about how the COVID-19 pandemic will affect the way we live and work. Opinions vary widely and, in some cases, wildly about the long-term effects of a crisis which is ongoing.
When Japan opened up to the world after 200 years of isolation, Yokohama was designated as an open port and subsequently grew from a small fishing village into a bustling centre of international trade and commerce by the 1868, the beginning of the Meiji Period.
Life comes at you fast. As this issue of Prospects was being put together, the COVID-19 pandemic spread around Asia and to the rest of the world. The rapidly evolving situation means everything is soon out of date.
Questions of environmental sustainability are now uppermost in the minds of most institutional real estate investors.
India’s growth is slowing down yet it continues to be the fastest growing economy globally. In fact, to arrest the slowdown and boost growth, the government has introduced a number of measures.
Prospects picks the brains of two Asia Pacific real estate investment managers to discover what investors ought to be looking out for in the coming year.
This time last year, there was a lot of rain forecast for real estate, but 2019 has been rather benign.
The sharing economy is here to stay and it is overwhelmingly positive for real estate owners.
The absence of a speedy resolution to the trade war between the United States and China has caused equity market jitters around the world.
Late in the global real estate cycle, there is a widespread perception that value is hard to find.
There was a somewhat muted response in Hong Kong to the publication of the outline development plan for the Greater Bay Area, but people – especially in real estate – should be alert to the opportunities this initiative brings.
The Chinese have deliberated REITs for over a decade now, having experimented with a number of real estate securitisation products.
Lenses, both real and metaphorical, can be very useful things. They provide vision and clarity – but use the wrong ones, and things start to appear blurry.
For the past five years, India has been led by a government with a huge majority, thus the policy paralysis of the previous decade has turned into a policy overdrive, with a raft of new and revived initiatives.
Many retail landlords are focused on the threat of online shopping and how it will disturb their bricks and mortar business. However online shopping should not be regarded as an alien threat, but as an integral part of a retail operation.
For a business which is said to be quintessentially local, real estate is more international than ever before.
Luxury retail in high street shops and in high-end malls gets a lot of attention, but neighbourhood shopping centres offer advantages investors should not ignore.
Asia Pacific property markets have seen a remarkable period of growth since 2009 driven by an array of positive drivers, both domestic and foreign.
During the Cold War, US scientists created the Doomsday Clock, which was intended to show how close the world was to nuclear disaster.
Increasing institutional allocations to real estate and a lack of domestic opportunities is driving Korean investors into new structures and sectors.
Investors often ask if Hong Kong's office market can continue into the stratosphere.
The subject of demographics is always a hot topic in this part of the world, and so it should be; 14 Asia-Pacific countries account for 65% of the world's population, dominated of course by China (1.4bn) and India (1.3bn).