Investors home in on Singapore co-living, Hong Kong student housing in Apac’s US$13.8 billion living boom
Institutions are hunting in new markets beyond Japan and Australia where strong demand has driven up pricing, compressed yields
[SINGAPORE] Institutional interest is building in Singapore co-living and Hong Kong student housing, as a boom in Asia-Pacific’s (Apac) living sector extends beyond Japan and Australia, drawing capital from the likes of PGIM and BlackRock.
Investment in the sector, which covers rental housing categories, surged 38 per cent year on year to US$13.8 billion in 2025. It is the second-fastest among all real estate sectors after senior housing, a report by CapitaLand Investment (CLI) showed.
“Rental growth has also consistently outpaced both inflation and interest rates, preserving real income while maintaining a positive spread over financing costs,” the CLI report said.
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, now ranks Japan and Singapore as Apac’s two most compelling living-sector markets, where it believes investors can generate attractive yields without significant planning or development risk.
“Japan offers established scale and defensive income, while Singapore offers a smaller but fast-institutionalising market with attractive value-add potential,” said Hamish Macdonald, head and chief investment officer of Asia-Pacific real estate at BlackRock.
Prudential’s asset management business PGIM, meanwhile, has deployed US$1.85 billion into Apac living-sector investments, with more than half invested in key markets including Australia, Japan and Singapore. The sector accounted for 60 per cent of its acquisitions and lending activity in 2025.
The living sector makes up about 23 per cent of PGIM’s global real estate portfolio, at more than US$50 billion.
Strong investor demand for established segments such as Japan multifamily and Australian student accommodation has driven pricing higher and compressed yields, said Suchad Chiaranussati, chairman and founder of real estate investment firm SC Capital Partners.
“For value-add and opportunistic capital, the focus is increasingly shifting towards identifying the next living subsectors within each market to institutionalise.”