2nd July, Monday
Industrial
Some gaps in data for industrial property Source: The Straits Times Investors flooding into Singapore's once unglamorous industrial property sector face some gaps in the data, at least for now. The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) said that some transactions may not show up on its Realis website even if caveats are lodged. The closely watched quarterly price index tracking the sector is based on Realis data. But the URA says it is working with other agencies to plug the gaps in the current data. Analysts say both prices and volumes of industrial property sales are likely to be higher than these official figures indicate. One factor for this could be buyers who do not use bank loans and so choose not to lodge caveats, which occurs across all property sectors. But the problem is compounded in the non-residential sector because even when caveats are lodged, not all transactions make it to Realis. This is because if the floor area of a unit - not required for the purpose of lodging a caveat - is not submitted, and URA cannot obtain this information from other sources, these transactions will not be included. The issue affects mostly new sales of strata-titled industrial, office and retail sectors, as full details of uncompleted projects are harder to obtain. But it does not affect residential property because URA is able to obtain the extra information from other sources such as its monthly survey of developers. URA is aiming to do something similar for industrial property. Its spokesman said: 'We are currently working with other government agencies to try to obtain the necessary information for industrial property sale transactions.'
Link to the story: http://www.straitstimes.com/print/PrimeNews/Story/STIStory_817518.html
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