Knight Frank Asia-Pacific Residential Focus

With most of the Asia-Pacific countries having successfully flattened their COVID-19 infection curves, many are beginning to enter the next phase by gradually easing their restrictions and allowing for more economic activity to occur. For residential markets, this has meant the resumption of property inspections and the reopening of show flats - albeit with strict social distancing measures in place.

This is leading to a gradual revival in homebuyer confidence, driving a recovery in transaction activity across the region.

The table above shows our residential brokerage and research sentiment survey over the past three months. This demonstrates not only an improvement in transaction activity, but also in asking prices across certain markets. The four markets that stand out are Shanghai, Shenzhen, Kuala Lumpur and Seoul.

Looking at China, which was one of the first to ease its lockdown and restart its economy, its residential markets have shown consistent improvement with transaction volumes in May close to re-COVID levels – this is particularly evident in the four major tier one cities; Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou.

China’s recovery has also benefitted the region with Chinese buyers returning to their favoured markets within the Asia-Pacific region; mainly to hedge their wealth against inflation and the possible depreciation of the Renminbi.

For more information and results from our sentiment survey, please see the latest COVID-19 June Bulletin