SINGAPORE: According to a recent article in Bloomberg, Singapore’s top three banks received an inflow of S$77 billion in new money in 2025 from ultra-high-net-worth individuals from other parts of Asia.
While global capital flowing into Singapore ends up in industries such as finance, tech, and manufacturing, a substantial portion is placed in real estate, with reports saying that foreign and cross-border investment are aimed at the property market, particularly commercial property and development sites.
This should be unsurprising, since Singapore’s real estate is widely considered to be a global safe-haven asset for several reasons, among which are low corruption, strong rule of law, and predictable government policies.
Much of the wealth inflow comes from China, but also from wealthy families in India, Indonesia, and the Middle East.
A number of factors contribute to Singapore’s attractiveness for cross-border investments into property. One is the scarcity of land, with Singapore’s fixed land area being about 734 km². Another is the slow growth of supply, and the third is the likelihood of long-term prices increasing. These factors contribute to investors seeing the city-state as not only a stable place to park their wealth but also as a hedge against inflation.
Early last year, CBRE’s 2025 Asia Pacific Investor Intentions Survey said that Singapore’s reliable market made it one of the top investment destinations in the Asia-Pacific region for 2025, ranking third, after Sydney and Tokyo.
CBRE found that interest rate cuts and changes in asset prices were the main reasons for investors’ increased willingness to invest in real estate. Net buying intentions increased from 5% in 2024 to 13% in 2025.
In 2024, Singapore was number two across the globe as a destination for land and development investment, attracting nearly S$2 billion in 2024, according to Colliers. The property portal Edgeprop, meanwhile, said that Singapore was expected to obtain 11% of the Asia-Pacific region’s cross-border real estate investment.
For the second quarter of 2025, the real estate consultancy Knight Frank said that foreign investment in property in Singapore rose by a sizable 572.5% year-on-year to US$2.3 billion (S$2.94 billion), the highest increase in the Asia-Pacific region. Much of the investment went into mixed-use and industrial real estate.
In September, Singapore was named the world’s top destination for cross-border land and development site investment on a 12-month rolling basis, Singapore Business Review reported, citing Colliers. /TISG
Read related: Singapore named top global destination for cross-border land investment: Colliers
Asia’s rich poured S$77 billion in new money into Singapore in 2025 — Bloomberg
