Office space prices up, but retail space prices soften slightly in Q3: URA

Office space prices up, but retail space prices soften slightly in Q3: URA

In the past three months, vacancy rates for office space declined, but the opposite was true for retail space, the Urban Redevelopment Authority said on Friday (Oct 24).

SINGAPORE: Prices of office space increased by 1.6 per cent in the third quarter of the year, while rental prices of office space rose 2.6 per cent in the same period, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) said on Friday (Oct 24).

In the same period, the vacancy rate of office space fell to 8.4 per cent, compared to 9.6 per cent at the end of the second quarter. The URA said that this was in part due to a 47,000sqm decrease in the stock of office space in the third quarter, compared with a 1,000sqm decrease three months prior. It was the largest quarterly decline since 1992, according to consultancy Knight Frank.

Occupancy rate remained healthy at 91.6 per cent in the third quarter. The amount of occupied office space increased by 50,000sqm (nett) in the third quarter, compared to the 22,000sqm (nett) increase in the previous quarter, the URA said.

RETAIL PRICES DIP

Prices of retail space declined by 0.2 per cent in the third quarter, following on a decline of 0.3 per cent in the previous three months. The increase of rental rates of retail space also slowed, rising by 0.1 per cent in the past three months, compared to the 0.6 per cent increase in the second quarter of the year.

The amount of occupied retail space increased by 15,000sqm (nett) in the third quarter, while the stock of retail space increased by 52,000sqm (nett) in the same period. As a result, the islandwide vacancy rate of retail space rose to 6.5 per cent at the end of third quarter, up from 5.9 per cent as of end-June.

Knight Frank said the islandwide occupancy rate of 93.5 percent in the third quarter was the lowest since the first quarter of 2011.

Analysts said retail rents could face downward pressure next year. Chestertons’ managing director, Mr Donald Han, noted: "Moving into 2015, we expect rentals to come under pressure mainly because tenants are more worried about their bottomline, more concerned about overall operating cost and labour cost, and we expect margins to be affected.

“Retailers are probably unable to pay higher rents come renewal. We probably will see rentals correcting 1, 2 per cent, but those development that are in the Grade A, prime retail malls will probably not see too much reduction in terms of rental."

OFFICE RENTS

CBRE Research said the average rent for Grade A office buildings in Singapore is S$10.95 per square foot per month, which is still some way off its record high.

Mr Desmond Sim, head of research for Southeast Asia at CBRE Research, elaborated: “The previous peak was in 2008 and we are likely 9.3 per cent off that peak. In our forecast, we do not see rents start to match that peak. At that time, GDP was doing relatively well, 6 to 8 per cent.

“What we see now is that GDP is pretty much controlled. Demand from financial institutions is also very limited."

NON-FINANCIAL SECTORS TO DRIVE DEMAND FOR OFFICE SPACE

Looking ahead, analysts expect non-financial sectors to continue to drive demand for office space. But they said some banks may be looking for room to grow, especially if they see substantial growth in the wealth management and renminbi clearing business.

Office rents have already gone up by over 7 per cent in the first three quarters of this year. For the whole of 2014, office rents are likely to increase 10 per cent, and analysts expect a similar pace of growth in 2015, with most of the rental growth seen in the first half of next year.

Meanwhile, office supply will remain tight next year, before new buildings like Marina One are completed in 2016.

INDUSTRIAL SPACE SEGMENT MOST CHALLENGING

Analysts said the industrial space segment will probably be most challenging - when compared with retail and office. Latest numbers from JTC showed growing weakness in multiple-user factory space, with prices falling 1.8 per cent on-quarter in the third quarter.

Knight Frank said: "Going forward, price depreciation for factory space is likely to continue in the coming quarters with the high supply of both factory and warehouse spaces. Demand for strata-titled factory units is likely to be reduced in the short-term, with the market's general expectation of further price moderations in light of the cautious manufacturing sentiment.

“We view that the rents would continue its decline in the coming quarters well into early next year. While this trend would pose greater challenges for the landlords, this would potentially benefit SMEs (small and medium enterprises) who are eager to have find industrial space at more available locations."

- CNA/es/ms

- wong chee tat :)

Premium grade office rents surge 6.1% in Q3: Colliers

Premium grade office rents surge 6.1% in Q3: Colliers

The quarter-on-quarter increase was the highest in three years, and comes amid a continued shortage of office space in the central business district, the real estate services firm says.

SINGAPORE: Premium grade office rents in the Raffles Place/New Downtown area surged 6.1 per cent in the third quarter to S$11.67 psf per month amid a continued shortage of office space in the central business district, real estate services firm Colliers International said on Monday (Oct 13).

The 6.1 per cent quarter-on-quarter increase was the highest in three years, and was nearly double the 3.1 percent pace recorded in the second quarter.

Grade A office space in the Raffles Place/New Downtown area rose 2.9 per cent quarter on quarter to S$10.25 psf in July-September, while Grade A rents in the Shenton Way and Tanjong Pagar area gained 2.9 per cent to S$8.83 psf.

Colliers defines premium-grade offices as those found in relatively new buildings with large floor plates of more than 20,000sqft as well as intelligent features. Examples of such buildings include Marina Bay Financial Centre and Asia Square.

Grade A offices, on the other hand, refer to those in good quality buildings in strategic locations that are well served by amenities and transport nodes, for example 6 Battery Road and Republic Plaza Tower 1.

Colliers said the rise in office rents comes amid a supply squeeze, with the average occupancy rates of most micro-markets having breached the technical full occupancy rate of 95 per cent.

For instance, as of September 2014, the average occupancy rate for Grade A space in Raffles Place/New Downtown and Shenton Way/Tanjong Pagar stood at 97.2 per cent and 99.4 per cent, respectively.

- CNA/cy


- wong chee tat :)

word problem

A MS Office 2010 user encountered this problem with MS Word 2010:  Whenever using spell check function, MS Word will simply hang and becomes unresponsive. To end it, you have to kill the process from the task manager. It happens to any word document.

Check for the following:

- Launch winword /safe from run or from cmd and check.
- Check for any addins or plugins and disable it and check.

This should resolve the problem.

- wong chee tat :)

OUE seeks shareholders’ approval to sell OUE Bayfront into its REIT for at least $1 bil

OUE seeks shareholders’ approval to sell OUE Bayfront into its REIT for at least $1 bil

WRITTEN BY THE EDGE
WEDNESDAY, 20 NOVEMBER 2013 13:06

OUE is seeking approval from its shareholders to sell OUE Bayfront into the commercial real-estate investment trust (OUE C-REIT) it is planning to list for a consideration least $1 billion.

An extraordinary general meeting (EGM) for shareholders to vote on the transaction will be held on December 4.

OUE Bayfront is an 18-storey premium office building with rooftop restaurant premises located at 50 Collyer Quay, which is complemented by retail facilities at its ancillary properties, namely OUE Tower, a conserved tower building located at 60 Collyer Quay with panoramic views of the Marina Bay landscape which is currently occupied by a fine-dining restaurant and OUE Link, a link bridge located at 62 Collyer Quay with retail units.

Based on the valuation of OUE Bayfront by Cushman & Wakefield VHS as at September 30, 2013, the property is valued at $1.01 billion and at $1.4 billion when income support is taken into account.

Assuming that the OUE Bayfront Property is sold for the minimum price of $1 billion, the sale consideration may comprise a cash component of $696.9 million and
a cash-equivalent component comprising units in the commercial REIT worth $308.1 million.

OUE intends to use the cash proceeds for the following purposes to pay down existing debt of US$376.6 million and for general corporate and working capital purposes.

The EGM will also see shareholders voting on OUE's proposal to distribute to shareholders about 25.6% of the company-held OUE H-Trust stapled securities to shareholders, on the basis of 1 company-held OUE H-Trust stapled security for every 6 shares held.

OUE “intends to retain approximately 33 to 35% of the total number of OUE H-Trust stapled securities in issue” after the distribution, it said.

LAST UPDATED ON WEDNESDAY, 20 NOVEMBER 2013 13:12

- wong chee tat :)

Print to the Microsoft XPS Document Writer

Applies to Windows 7

The XPS Document Writer allows you to create .xps files using any program that you can print from in Windows. Print to the XPS Document Writer when you want to create, send, and share or publish documents that you do not want other people to modify, or when you want to print a document or display it online exactly as it appears on your screen. It's also a good idea to create an XPS document for files that contain graphics or illustrations that might otherwise display differently in print than online or on computers with different monitors.

XPS documents are easy to share because you can view them on any computer where an XPS viewer is installed, even if the computer doesn't have the same programs that you used to create the original documents. For more information about XPS documents, see XPS documents: frequently asked questions or go to the Microsoft XML Paper Specification website.

To print to the XPS Document Writer

1. Open the document or file that you want to print to .xps format, and then click Print. In most programs, the print option is available from the File menu.
2. In the Print dialog box, select Microsoft XPS Document Writer.
3. To view the document using the XPS Viewer after you print it, click Preferences, click the XPS Documents tab, make sure that the Automatically open XPS documents using the XPS viewer check box is selected, and then click OK.
4. Click Print to print the document or file.
5. When prompted, enter a file name and browse to the location where you want to save the .xps file. Click Save. Windows will save .xps files in your Documents folder by default.

After printing to the .xps file format, you can view an XPS document by browsing to it and opening it. You can print a paper copy, share the XPS document, or send it to a commercial printer or to other people in any way that you prefer.

Tip

• To help prevent security problems, you can attach a digital signature to an XPS document before you send or share it. The digital signature identifies the creator of the XPS document and helps warn anyone who views it if the document was modified after it was digitally signed. You can also determine who can view the document and for how long by applying permissions before sharing the document.

- wong chee tat :)

Singapore's office rental market expected to go up

Singapore's office rental market expected to go up

    By Toni Waterman
    POSTED: 26 Jun 2013 11:24 PM
  
Singapore's office rental market is on the rebound after bottoming out in the last quarter of 2012, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

SINGAPORE: Singapore's office rental market is on the rebound after bottoming out in the last quarter of 2012, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

In its quarterly office market report, the real estate firm said rents are on the rise and vacancies are drying up, though not all office buildings are sharing the comeback.

Cushman & Wakefield's latest office market report showed that the average rent in prime Grade A locations was up 4.2 per cent in the second quarter, from a quarter earlier, hitting S$9.03 a square foot per month.

That was up from S$8.99 per square foot per month in the first quarter of this year.

Sigrid Zialcita, managing director of research for the Asia Pacific at Cushman & Wakefield, said: "We are expecting rents to go up across the board on the back of very solid demand.

"We're not going to see the spikes we've seen in the 2007-2008 time frame, where rents went as high as S$18-S$19 a foot."

The report showed that all the CBD submarkets saw average rents appreciate, with Marina Bay and Shenton Way seeing a 9 per cent rise in rents. In the fringe area, Orchard Road's average rents moved up by around 4.6 per cent quarter-on-quarter.

The average rent in the suburban submarket rose slightly -- by 1.3 per cent quarter-on-quarter -- to S$5.64 psf per month.

Vacancy rates for Grade A office space is also improving -- dropping to 3.7 per cent in the second quarter from 5.0 per cent in the first quarter.

Vacancies at Marina Bay shrank to 3.6 per cent in Q2, from 5.6 per cent a quarter ago and 12.1 per cent a year ago. Raffles Place had an overall vacancy rate of 5.5 per cent, while Shenton Way's vacancy rate stood at 4.9 per cent.

Experts said diversity in the tenant pool has helped fill the office space.

"Long gone are purely financial institutions," said Desmond Sim, associate director of CBRE Research. "You have complimentary services like insurance, you've got legal all coming in to take up Grade A stock within Marina Bay and Raffles Place."

Also helping the office rental market is the limited new supply coming to the market.

Mr Sim said: "This year, we have the Asia Square Tower II coming on stream. Next year, we have CapitaGreen that will come on stream. Then we actually have a break of no Grade A product coming in 2015.

"So if someone is trying to take advantage of the current low Grade A rents, they might realize the Grade A stock coming online is quite limited."

One place where vacancies are not falling is in the suburbs, where vacancies are expected to rise to over 8 per cent through 2014.

The suburban vacancy rate was 2.7 per cent in 2012, and is expected to rise to 6.0 per cent this year and hit 8.2 per cent in 2014.

Sigrid Zialcita said: "In the suburbs, we're going to see some massive projects delivered and add space, but again we don't think it's a huge concern for the market because the take up we've seen has been brisk, and going forward we see very healthy leasing occurring in this properties."

There will be more options, but not necessarily better prices, as experts said despite rising vacancies, rental rates in the suburbs will remain stable at around S$5.50 per square foot this year to 2014.

- CNA/al

- wong chee tat :)

Freeze Top Row in MS Excel 2010 and OpenOffice

Doing some data analysis and I felt there is a need to create a top row and "freeze" it using excel 2010. I provided the screenshot above.

To do so:

Select the top row to be "freeze". Go to View --> Freeze Top Row and it works!

What about for openoffice users?

I'm using OpenOffice 3.4.1 and to do so, there is a slight difference:

Select the row below the one you want to freeze (in this case, the second row), then go to Window --> Freeze.

- wong chee tat :)

Recall or replace an email message that you sent

The recall feature in Microsoft Outlook tries to stop delivery and, optionally, replace an email message that you have already sent to another Microsoft Exchange Server user within your organization. Message recall is available after you click Send and then realize that you forgot to attach a file, include information in the message, or want to revise what was originally sent. You can’t recall messages sent to email addresses outside your organization.

 Note    A Microsoft Exchange Server account is required.

In this article

• Recall a message
• Recall and replace a message
• Scenarios that affect recall success

Recall a message

To recall a message without sending a revised message, do the following:

1. In Mail, in the Navigation Pane, click Sent Items.
2. Open the message that you want to recall.
3. On the Message tab, in the Move group, click Actions, and then click Recall This Message.
4. Click Delete unread copies of this message.

 Note    If you don’t see the Message tab, make sure that you have opened a sent message as described in steps 1 and 2.

I don't see the Recall This Message command

 Note    If you are sending the message to many people, you may want to clear the Tell me if recall succeeds or fails for each recipient check box.

Top of Page

Recall and replace a message

In addition to trying to recall a message, you can send a replacement message. For example, if you forgot to include an attachment, you can try to recall the message, and then send a replacement message that has the attachment. The original message is removed from the mailboxes of the recipients who have not yet opened it, and then is replaced with the updated message.
To recall a message and then send a revised message, do the following:

1. In Mail, in the Navigation Pane, click Sent Items.
2. Open the message that you want to recall and replace.
3. On the Message tab, in the Move group, click Actions, and then click Recall This Message.

I don't see the Recall This Message command

4. Click Delete unread copies and replace with a new message.

 Note    If you are sending the message to many people, you may want to clear the Tell me if recall succeeds or fails for each recipient check box.

5. Click OK, and then update the new message. You can also remove or add file attachments.
6. Click Send.

Top of Page

Scenarios that affect recall success

The success or failure of a message recall depends on the recipients' settings in Outlook. In the following table, five scenarios are presented:

• Four scenarios that explain what happens when message recall is tried in various situations
• One scenario that describes what happens when the recall of a message that was sent to a Microsoft Exchange public folder is tried

Action	Result
You send a message to someone. You recall the original message and replace it with a new one. On the recipient's computer, under Tracking, the Automatically process requests and responses to meeting requests and polls check box is selected.  Note   To view this setting, click the File tab. Under Outlook, click Options, click Mail, and then scroll to the Tracking section.	Both the original message and the recall message are received in the recipient's Inbox. Assuming the original message has not been read, the original message is deleted and the recipient is informed that you, the sender, deleted the message from his or her mailbox.  Note    If the original message is marked as read (viewing in the Reading Pane is not reading in this scenario) when the recall message is processed, the recipient is informed that you, the sender, want to delete the message. However, the message remains in the recipient's Outlook folder.
You send a message to someone. You recall the original message and replace it with a new one. On the recipient's computer, under Tracking, the Automatically process requests and responses to meeting requests and polls check box is not selected.  Note   To view this setting, click the File tab. Under Outlook, click Options, click Mail, and then scroll to the Tracking section.	Both the original message and the recall message are received in the recipient's Inbox. On the recipient's computer, one of the following results occurs: If the recipient opens the recall message first, the original message is deleted, and the recipient is informed that you, the sender, have deleted the message from their mailbox. If the recipient opens the original message first, the recall fails, and both the original and recall messages are available.  Note    If the original message is marked as read (viewing in the Reading Pane is not reading in this scenario) when the recall message is processed, the recipient is informed that you, the sender, want to delete the message. However, the message remains in the recipient's Outlook folder.
You send a message to someone. You recall the original message and replace it with a new one. On the recipient's computer, either by rule or by action of the recipient, the original message is moved out of the Inbox to another folder and the recall message remains in the Inbox (or it is moved to another folder also).	If the recall message and the original message exist in separate folders, the recipient receives a message that indicates a recall attempt failed. This occurs regardless of the Outlook configurations and the read status of the message. The original message and the new message are both available to the recipient.
You send a message to someone. You recall the original message and replace it with a new one. On the recipient's computer, either by rule or by action of the recipient, both messages are moved to the same folder. This results in behavior similar to what occurs when Outlook is not configured to automatically process messages.	On the recipient's computer, one of the following results occurs: If the recipient opens the recall message first, the original message is deleted, and the recipient is informed that you, the sender, deleted the message from his or her mailbox. If the recipient opens the original message first, the recall fails, and both the old and new messages are available.
You send a message to a public folder. You recall the original message and replace it with a new one.	One of the following results occurs: If the recipient who reads the recall message has read access to all the items in the public folder but did not read the original message, the recall succeeds, and only the new message remains. You, the sender, receive a message that indicates the recall succeeded. If the recipient has already marked the original message as read, he or she is informed that the recall failed, and only the recall message is deleted. If a user who has any other public folder rights opens the recall message, the recall fails, and the user receives a message that states the recall failed. Both the old and new messages remain in the public folder.  Notes  If the recipient reads the original message and then marks it as unread, it is considered never read and recall is successful. In the public folder, it is the reader's rights, not the sender's, that determine the success or failure of the recall.

- wong chee tat :)

German police stop man with mobile office in car

In this photo made available by the Saarland State Police in Germany on Friday Nov. 16, 2012, shows a vehicle with its interior wired up like a mobile office, that Saarland State police stopped on the autobahn near Saarbruecken Germany on Monday Nov. 12, 2012. Forget texting while driving. German police say they nabbed a driver who had wired his Ford station wagon with an entire mobile office. Saarland state police said Friday the 35-year-old man was pulled over for doing 130 km/h (81 mph) in a 100 km/h (62 mph) zone while passing a truck Monday. Built on a wooden frame on his passenger seat they found a laptop on a docking station tilted for easy driver access, a printer, router, wireless internet stick, WLAN antenna, and an inverter to power it all. A navigation system and cellphone mounted to the windshield completed the array. Since there wasn’t evidence he used the office while moving, he got away with a euro120 ($153) speeding ticket and possible fine for having unsecured items in his car. (AP Photo/Saarland State Police)

By Associated Press,
Last Updated: Friday, November 16, 2012

BERLIN -- 

(AP) — Forget texting while driving. German police say they nabbed a driver who had wired his Ford station wagon with an entire mobile office.
Saarland state police said Friday the 35-year-old man was pulled over for doing 130 kph (80 mph) in a 100 kph zone while passing a truck Monday.
Built on a wooden frame on his passenger seat they found a laptop on a docking station tilted for easy driver access, a printer, router, wireless internet stick, WLAN antenna, and an inverter to power it all.
A navigation system and cellphone mounted to the windshield completed the array.
Since there was no evidence he used the office while moving, he got away with a €120 ($153) speeding ticket and a possible fine for having unsecured items in his car.

Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.




 This guy is smart
- wong chee tat :)

New mixed use development coming up in Bugis

New mixed use development coming up in Bugis
By Millet Enriquez | Posted: 14 November 2012 2338 hrs
     
SINGAPORE : A S$3 billion mixed development property is set to vastly alter the Bugis skyline over the next few years.

Named DUO, the property will comprise residences, offices, hotel and retail space.

Its developer, M+S, jointly owned by Malaysia's Khazanah Nasional and Temasek Holdings, unveiled the design of the project on Wednesday.

By 2017, two new towers will be added to the Bugis skyline.

Enclosed in a park-like environment, DUO features 660 units of prime residences, 21 storeys of Grade A offices, a five-star hotel and close to 80,000 square feet of retail space.

Designed by a renowned architect Ole Scheeren, the project is connected to the Bugis MRT interchange that will link the East-West Line and the upcoming Downtown Line.

Its developers are optimistic it will draw strong interest when it launches for sale in early 2013 - with foreign buyers possibly eyeing the residential property.

Tan Sri Azman Yahya, chairman of M+S, said: "The large three international buyers in Singapore have been Malaysians, Indonesians and Chinese. So we expect that the ratio of buyers will be quite similar to any other offerings around the CBD (Central Business District) area. We do expect a significant number of international buyers."

Property consultant HSR said homes in DUO could fetch up to S$2,000 psf depending on size, and a premium of 5 to 10 per cent, given its connectivity to the MRT station.

"Being a Khazanah project, we would expect demand to particularly come from Malaysian investors. The locality would boost the commercial hub status in the Bugis area. It has the potential of being Hong Kong's ICC Tower or Kowloon East if marketed and priced properly to attract financial companies who are saddled with high cost within the financial district," said Donald Han, special advisor at HSR Group.

The lack of Grade A offices in the area should also result in demand for the long term.

"Bugis office supply is confined to mostly grade B stock. The M+S office project can bring critical mass into the area, as a serious business hub. Residential within integrated mixed developments tend to enjoy a premium and sell well in today's market," added Mr Han.

Mr Scheeren said: "I have worked independently for Singaporean clients and independently for Malaysian clients, and I think what is really exciting about the project is that this is indeed a joint venture between both of them. Both the way that that is translated into the architecture and also in a way what that symbolises in itself, it may be both sensitive but also extremely positive."

However, analysts said initial marketing in 2013 may not result in strong take-up, given that pre-leasing usually rises a year prior to completion.

Some analysts also cautioned of downward price pressures on the prime residential market, in light of the government's cooling measures.

Nicholas Mak, executive director at SLP International Property Consultants, said office rents in the Bugis area could also face a downtrend in 2013.

CapitaLand and UEM Land Holdings are the project managers of the development.

- CNA/ms


- wong chee tat :)

Utah-Based IT Firm Projected to Double Revenue with Office PC and Cloud Solution

- wong chee tat :)

IT Provider Regains 480 Staff Hours and $45,000 Annually with Office 2010

- wong chee tat :)

Microsoft Office 2010 Web Apps

- wong chee tat :)

Microsoft Lync 2010

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Microsoft Publisher 2010

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Romanian Ice Cream Maker Improves Productivity by 30 Percent with Office 2010

- wong chee tat :)

Microsoft SharePoint Workspace 2010

- wong chee tat :)

Microsoft Office 2010 Mobile

- wong chee tat :)

Office 2010: The Movie

- wong chee tat :)

Microsoft Visio 2010

- wong chee tat :)