SINGAPORE - The prices and rents of industrial space continued to moderate in the third quarter of this year in tandem with occupancy rates, according to a report from JTC on Thursday (Oct 26).

Compared to a year ago, the price and rents fell by 7.4 per cent and 3.2 per cent respectively.

Quarter-on-quarter, prices and rents slipped by 0.9 per cent and 1.1 per cent respectively.

The occupancy rate of the overall industrial property market dropped to 88.6 per cent, a 0.5 percentage points from a year ago and 0.1 percentage points from the previous quarter.

Looking ahead, JTC said that with more supply coming on-stream in the coming quarters, prices and rents of industrial space are likely to continue to soften.

From now till the end of 2018, about 2.3 million sq m of industrial space is estimated to be completed. This is about 5 per cent of current industrial stock. As a comparison, the average annual supply and demand of industrial space was around 1.8 million sq m and 1.3 million sq m in the past three years.

There are also about 1,000 units, totalling about 215,000 sq m, in uncompleted strata-titled developments still available for sale at the end of the third quarter. A majority of the available units are less than 200 sq m in size.

JTC said it will continue to monitor the market closely to ensure a stable and sustainable supply of land and space to support the needs of industrialists.