The Biggest Industrial Property Profits and Losses, Month by Month

From URA's caveat records of industrial property sales. Each resale is matched to the same unit's previous purchase by its address and unit number, so every row is a price someone actually paid and a price someone actually received — no estimates and no asking prices.

No. It is the gross figure: the sale price minus the price the seller paid. Stamp duties, legal fees, agent commission, financing costs and anything spent on the property all come out of the real return, so what the seller kept is lower than the figure shown.

The profit spread evenly over the years the property was held, as a yearly rate. A property that doubled over 20 years grew about 3.5% a year; one that rose 20% in two years grew about 9.5% a year. Ranking by Per Year compares properties held for different lengths of time on the same footing.

Most industrial land in Singapore is leased, often for 30 or 60 years, and a lease runs down every year it is held. A factory with little lease left is worth less each year, so it can sell for less than its seller paid even when prices elsewhere are rising. Since 2020, more resales with under 30 years left sold at a loss than at a profit. Filter by Lease Left to compare factories on similar leases.

The years left on the lease on the day the property sold, from the tenure recorded for the sale. Freehold includes 999-year leases. A lease runs down every year it is held, so a property with little lease left can be worth less each year even when prices around it are rising.

By the average result of its resales in the month, on whichever measure you rank by. A building needs at least two resales in the month — within the filters you choose — to be ranked, so one unusual sale cannot put a whole building at the top or the bottom of the list. Buildings are ranked one address at a time, so two blocks of the same industrial park are ranked apart.

Resales within six months of purchase, the first sale by a developer, any sale where the recorded floor area changed, any strata unit whose address does not name the unit, and any sale whose lease ends on a different date from the lease recorded when it was bought. Each of those compares two different properties, or a lease that changed, rather than one property bought and sold.

A sale is recorded when its caveat is lodged, which can be weeks after the option is exercised. The newest month keeps filling in after it ends, so its lists can still change until its records settle.