Commercial investment volumes drop 19% YoY to US$1.7b in Q3: MSCI

Singapore ranked 5th amongst APAC markets with the highest investment volume.

Despite an improvement in its office segment, Hong Kong's overall commercial investment volume still fell 19% YoY to US$1.7b in Q3, data from MSCI showed.

The report, however, underscored that Hong Kong "was coming off an already-low base in 2021." 

MSCI also explained that the reason for the 60% YoY increase in investment volume in the office sector was  largely due to the US$879m sale of the Goldin Financial Center, which it said was "a troubled asset that was finally sold at less than half the price offered by the original buyer two years ago"

On the other segments, MSCI said: "The retail sector, which is dominated by domestic private players, has suffered amid rate hikes. Industrial investment, which had proven resilient for most of the pandemic, sank to the lowest quarterly tally since 2014."

Despite a 19% YoY decline, Hong Kong managed to rank as the 5th APAC market with the highest investment volume for Q3.

"While trading of stabilized assets in Hong Kong has remained lacklustre this year, there are other signs that investors are betting on a longer-term recovery for the market. Cross-border capital continues to target assets for repositioning and redevelopment, particularly for the residential and self-storage sectors. In addition, there has been a pick up in the volume and number of forward sales so far this year," MSCI's Benjamin Chow said.