The first drink session of the year drew a moderate but thirsty crowd to the Pump Room, with Alpin Mehta from Temasek Holdings joining us for the first time. The first Thursdays of January and February usually fall on or around the two New Year celebrations and consequently it had been a few months since the last drinks. In terms of our discussions around market developments, it seems not much had changed in that time, however the Singapore residential market keeps doing well with prices going up without anyone really understanding why, but the commercial markets around the region remain pretty quiet. In fact, in a quick poll amongst the participants on where in the world they see really good value for real estate investments right now, the general feeling was almost no-where. The only places that got mentioned as potentially good places to invest where Mexico and Brazil. Not very encouraging for us based here in Singapore, but of course there is always the chance that ultra low interest rates will ignite another property boom more widely. Lets hope our collective pessimism is wrong, that there will be more clarity on the state of the world economy and perhaps that there will be further corrections in the markets so that buyers start seeing real value again. And in any case, who are we to predict the markets? A group of highly educated professionals with decades of collective experience are bound to be blinded by silly things like fundamentals, supply and demand etc., and get it all wrong...
The next drinks are planned for early April (probably 8th as the 1st collides with Easter) so stay tuned!
