INVESTMENTS from the private sector helped push real estate investment activity to a record high of $13.3 billion in the three months to September.

This was higher than the previous record of $12.4 billion in the same period four years ago, said a DTZ report on Thursday.

Real estate investment activity includes the sale of land, buildings and multiple residential or commercial units worth at least $5 million each.

Private sector acquisitions made up 70 per cent of investment activity in the last quarter, as three real estate investment trusts listed on the Singapore Exchange. This saw $3.1 billion worth of investments into mixed-use developments and $2.8 billion into hotels, said DTZ.

In the public sector, investments were up by 80 per cent from the previous quarter, as developers bidded fiercely for land sites under the Government Land Sales programme.

DTZ noted that there were between six to 16 bids for each residential site tender in the three months to September, while a tender for an executive condominium site at Yuan Ching Road smashed records when it drew a record price of $481 per sq ft per plot ratio.