Ku Swee Yong 邱瑞榮

Ku Swee Yong 邱瑞榮
Ku Swee Yong.jpg
Born	21 June 1970 Singapore
🎓 Alma mater	Imperial College London (BSc) University of Strasbourg (BSc) University of Hull (MBA)
💼 Occupation	CEO of International Property Advisor and Co-founder of HugProperty

Ku Swee Yong 邱瑞榮 (Born 21 June 1970) is a Singaporean property analyst and media personality. Swee Yong is the CEO of International Property Advisor and Co-founder of HugProperty.

Career

Swee Yong was the CEO of Century 21 Singapore from November 2013 to November 2016. Prior to starting his own companies, he held the roles of the Director in the Real Estate Centre of Expertise at Société Générale Private Banking where he was in charge of advising clients on real estate investments, the Director of Marketing and Business Development at Savills Singapore and the General Manager at Far East Organization’s Indonesia office..

Swee Yong is an adjunct faculty member at the Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore Management University, where he co-teaches the modules of "Alternative Investments" for the Master of Applied Finance degree and the "Real Estate Investments & Finance" for undergraduates. His enthusiasm for sharing his knowledge with students earned him a "Dean's Teaching Honour List" for Top Adjunct Faculty on 28 June 2019 from the Singapore Management University's Lee Kong Chian School of Business. He went on to win that award once again in 2020. Swee Yong also taught courses in the Department of Real Estate, National University of Singapore in 2016 to 2017 and was a module leader in the School of Design and Environment in Ngee Ann Polytechnic from the year 2017 to 2020. Over the past 5 years, he has worked with lecturers in Ngee Ann Polytechnic to develop several modules for adult learners as well as full time students. Two modules he co-developed were put on a Micro Learning Platform (Gnowbe) which were qualified under the Council for Estate Agents that counted towards 2 hours of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for practicing real estate agents. In addition, Swee Yong also teaches a CPD course (which he developed) at the Singapore Estate Agents Association.

National University of Singapore - Swee Yong lecturing on the topic of Real Estate Market Analysis

Ngee Ann Polytechnic - Student site visit to Orchard Road, Singapore

Swee Yong speaking at SMART Investment & International Property Expo, Singapore

Contributions

In October 2006, when the Singapore residential market was trying to understand the, then record high, S$3,000 per square foot prices, Swee Yong, working with the research team in Savills Singapore, was first to foretell that residential properties will reach a new high of S$4,500 per square foot. He anticipated the demand for luxury residences to increase steeply as Singapore marketed itself across the world with luxury-branded residences and a residential enclave for high net worth families in Sentosa Cove. Furthermore, there was a shortage of new homes supply caused by the 2004-2006 en bloc wave which led to a demolition of more than 10,000 old private residential units. Swee Yong stated that “there is another 30% to 50% upside by year 2010, bringing peak prices to S$4,000 to S$4,500 per sqft”. This prediction was realised when a penthouse in St Regis Residences transacted at above the S$4,500 per sqft mark in 2007.

In 2013, Swee Yong was also the first to forecast the downturn of Singapore's residential market. On 8 November 2013, TODAY (a Singapore newspaper), published Chapter 13 of his third book, Real Estate Realities, titled “The price war has begun”. Swee Yong foresaw that the residential market had peaked and advised his clients to start downsizing their residential investment portfolio. The residential property price index proceeded to drop for 15 consecutive quarters from late 2013 to mid-2017.

On 5 June 2018, Swee Yong contributed his opinion in The Straits Times when more public attention was shed on the issue with ageing HDB flats. This was an excerpt from Chapter 2, Facing the 99-year Leasehold Chasm of Public Housing, of his book Preparing For A Property Upturn. On 14 August 2018, Swee Yong followed up with another opinion piece in The Straits Times on how HDB flat buyers are "merely lessees who rent the HDB flats". This second piece was excerpted from Chapter 1, Nearing the Edge of the Precipice: Ageing Population and the Housing Market of the same book. This commentary went on to generate numerous discussions and debates in the next few months amongst the media and the public. This second piece was excerpted from Chapter 1, Nearing the Edge of the Precipice: Ageing Population and the Housing Market of the same book. This commentary went on to generate numerous discussions and debates in the next few months amongst the media and the public.

In response to this, HDB took an official stance addressing Swee Yong's commentary.. An article from The Straits Times wrote “Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong refutes the notion that the lease is "merely an extended rental", not a sale.” The article also said that “He found the argument by some commentators ‘frankly amazing’” The Minister of National Development Singapore, Mr Lawrence Wong, responded to the commentary, stating that "It is "factually and legally wrong" to suggest that Housing Development Board flat buyers do not own their flats and are merely renting them".

In addition, Swee Yong also evaluated the long-term challenges to retirement adequacy stemming from the depreciation of Singapore's 99-year lease of HDB flats, coupled with the large and growing numbers of retired baby boomers. The analysis published in Chapters 1 and 2 of his fifth book Preparing For A Property Upturn, went against widely-held beliefs that HDB flats offers a good store of wealth for retirees in Singapore.

Swee Yong highlighted that HDB housing is mainly facing these two major issues. Firstly, HDB flat owners' life savings will depreciate significantly as the value of their flats decline significantly towards the end of the 99-year lease. Secondly, it takes about 25 years for first time flat buyers to pay off their property loans on the initial purchase of BTO flats as it is priced very high, relative to their income. This leaves little room to have sufficient savings for retirement, medical expenses and education upgrading. Later on, Swee Yong in collaboration with Mr Yeoh Lam Keong, a former Chief Economist of the Government Investment Corporation (GIC) of Singapore, and Adjunct Professor of Architecture Mr Tay Kheng Soon, published a 4-pronged policy proposal on possible approaches to solve these pressing and complex issues on 30 November, 2019. The proposal was presented through the platform of a non-partisan group, The Future of Singapore Group, on 30 November 2019..

Swee Yong frequently conducts mall surveys to assess the retail landscape. Heading to malls around Singapore to understand the health of the sector; observing whether there is a notable change in shopper traffic, vacancy rates, spending patterns and other indicators during his mall surveys. His personal belief in trying to prevent investors from being short-changed led him to research and publish various articles with regard to the change in housing policies as well as the evaluation of real estate investment strategies.

In February 2020, he forecasted an upcoming downturn in Singapore’s retail property sector. This prediction was made after analysing a 10-month downward trend of Retail Sales in Singapore. Additionally, he noted a marked increase in vacancy rates and a drop in footfall (due to Coronavirus outbreak) during his frequent mall surveys. Hence, with both historical and leading indicators pointing towards the same outcome, he predicted a looming recession in the retail landscape.

Education

Swee Yong holds an MBA in Marketing from University of Hull, UK, and completed his BSc in the Imperial College, University of London, UK and the Institut Louis Pasteur, Université de Strasbourg, France.

Swee Yong was admitted to the Faculty of Law at the National University of Singapore for his undergraduate studies in 1991. However his love for chemistry (and the glassware and alcohols in chemistry laboratories) won over and he went to pursue his interest in Chemistry at the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine in London. Swee Yong achieved distinctions for every subject and in his final year, he created a new molecule (an organic complex of ruthenium metal) that led to him being a co-author of a research paper titled "Synthesis and structure of new 2,6-(diphenylphosphinomethyl)pyridine ruthenium(II) complexes". He also received two awards during his time in Imperial College, namely the "Smithkline Beecham Pharmaceuticals Prize" in Practical Chemistry in 1993 and the "H V A Briscoe Prize" in Inorganic Chemistry in 1994.

Media Appearances

Swee Yong's opinion is regularly featured in the Straits Times, , Business Times , The New Paper ,联合早报, Channel NewsAsia, TODAY, and Channel 8. He has also been featured in international media and quoted by CNBC, The New York Times, and Forbes

Bibliography

The Future of Real Estate by Ku Swee Yong

Swee Yong is the author of 6 books on the Singapore and international property markets, all of which were published by Marshall Cavendish.

5 books appeared on various bestsellers' lists while "Real Estate Realities" and "Preparing for a Property Upturn" were nominees for the Popular (one of the largest bookstores in Singapore) Readers' Choice Awards 2015 and 2018 respectively.

• Real Estate Riches (2011)
• Building Your Real Estate Riches (2012)
• Real Estate Realities (2014)
• Weathering A Property Downturn (2016)
• Preparing For A Property Upturn (2017)
• The Future of Real Estate (2020)

External links

Articles on HugProperty

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