Singapore property stocks may build on best rally in five years

SINGAPORE — Singapore property stocks are set for their best annual performance in five years, and strategists believe the rally is far from over.

With an expected pickup in real estate following the easing of housing curbs, developers are expected to be the bright spot in Singapore equities as gains in the city-state’s stocks may be limited for the rest of the year.

“The residential property market has seen a marked improvement in sentiment,” said Mr Desmond Loh at JPMorgan Asset Management, who helps manage the second-best performing Singapore fund this year. Developers that have started buying land for new projects stand to benefit, he said, adding that vacancy rates are expected to decline over the next few years.

The city-state’s government sparked renewed interest in the Singapore real estate market after it rolled back some curbs in March following a three-and-a-half-year in home prices, the longest stretch of declines since the data was first published in 1975. In the same month, housing sales surged to the highest in nearly four years as developers sold more than twice the number of homes compared with the previous year, government data showed.

Property stocks including City Developments and UOL Group are already driving gains in Singapore stocks so far this year, with developers and property trusts making up half of the 10 best-performing stocks on the Straits Times Index. The city-state’s benchmark measure has climbed 12 per cent this year, while the gauge tracking 42 Singapore real estate stocks has jumped 16 per cent, heading for its biggest annual gain since 2012.

“Prices are moving upwards again, albeit in a more gradual direction, market interest is more positive in terms of transactions,” said Mr Andrew Gillan, head of equities for Asia excluding Japan at Janus Henderson Group, which has about US$330.8 (S$457.5) billion assets under management globally. “That’s going to bode relatively well for earnings,” he added, pointing to developers that have accumulate land at “reasonable” costs.

Government land sales are drawing investor interest. A residential plot last month fetched a record price in a government sale, with a Chinese consortium bidding S$1 billion (US$723 million). Other developers are adding land by buying up existing apartment buildings for redevelopment in so-called en-bloc sales. Four of these deals — where a group of owners band together to sell entire apartment blocks at a hefty premium — have been struck this year, with a combined value of S$1.5 billion.

Still, the recovery in home sales hasn’t been consistent. Government data last week showed Singapore home sales fell 34 per cent in May as fewer new projects were marketed. And a further increase in housing transactions may also prompt more curbs or slow the relaxation of them.

The risk is “if volume really start to pick up quite strongly, then we will see more measures from the Monetary Authority of Singapore,” said Nomura’s South-east Asian equity strategist, Mixo Das, referring to the city-state’s central bank. “That’s something I can’t rule out, it’s certainly a possibility.”

That may also add to the headwinds limiting gains in the overall Singapore market. The Straits Times Index’s valuation is “looking a bit high” versus historical levels and some of its regional peers, which would cap further increases this year at three per cent to five per cent at best, said head of research at Oversea-Chinese Banking, Carmen Lee. The gauge is trading at 14.7 times expected earnings, compared with 13.3 times at the start of the year.

While property stocks aren’t as cheap as they were six to nine months ago, most are still trading at a discount to their book value and will outperform the overall market, she said. The Singapore property stock index is trading at a price-to-book value of 0.89, and last traded at par four years ago, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The optimism for home sales this year also comes as investor sentiment improved in the city-state on the back of a recovery in export demand that prompted the government to give an upbeat outlook on the economy in May, saying it will probably expand more than two per cent this year.

“We’re in a recovery phase at this point,” said an equity strategist at Morgan Stanley in Singapore, Sean Gardiner, by phone. “There are a number of macro prudential measures that are still weighing on the real estate market but we are definitely up from the bottom we saw early last year.” BLOOMBERG