The Asia Pacific REIT market saw a 22.8 percent year-on-year increase in market capitalisation in 2010 to US$156.8 billion, up from the previous year’s US$66 billion, said Asia Pacific Real Estate Association (APREA), which represents and promotes the property sector on a regional basis.
The region attracted tremendous amounts of liquidity last year, amid a financial environment infused with low interest rates and optimistic liquidity conditions, said APREA in its recent Asian REITs monthly report.
Peter Mitchell, CEO of APREA, said, “It remains to be seen if in 2011 more policy measures will be introduced to control capital inflows and the expansion of domestic credit to prevent excessive ‘over-heating’ of economies.”
The A-REIT (43.6 percent), J-REIT (26.3 percent) and S-REIT (17.5 percent) markets accounted for 87.4 percent of the US$156.8 billion market capitalisation of the Asia Pacific REIT market, which was still 20.5 percent below the peak achieved in October 2007.
Asian REIT’s market capitalisation, however, has surpassed its pre-crisis high, driven by Singapore, which saw a 270.5 percent increase in market capitalisation to US$28.9 billion as of 31 December 2010, from US$7.8 billion in March 2009.
The market capitalisation of Malaysian REITs rose 122.7 percent in 2010, attributed to the two new REIT listings, CapitaMalls Malaysia Trust and Sunway REIT. Other Asian REIT markets that saw substantial growth last year included Korea at 52.7 percent, Thailand at 37 percent and Singapore at 31.2 percent.
The 20 biggest REITs in Asia Pacific are dominated by Australia, Japan and Singapore, said the report.