One-hundred-and-eighty-seven is the number that’s long been touted as the golden destination for branded residence developments in Asia Pacific.
On its own, the number isn’t exactly a hefty total for a territory with a footprint covering a sizeable portion of the planet. But given that it represents a doubling of all luxury schemes in under a decade, it reveals a good deal about the complexion of super-prime residential markets in the region – and rather more about how that growth is being counted.
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So back to 187. That’s how many new branded residential schemes Savills expects Asia Pacific to deliver by 2032, a 97% increase on a completed base of roughly 190 projects, in a region that already accounts for around 23% of all completed branded schemes worldwide.
Reported as a standalone figure, it looks like momentum. But as Savills sets out in its APAC Branded Residences Report 2026, that 97% places the territory level with the Americas and behind both Europe and the Middle East and Africa, the latter now identified as the sector’s fastest-growing region.
The consultancy’s own outlook is blunter still, describing a market advancing at a steadier rate than its global peers. And the two figures the sector quotes most often underpinning this growth – the 97% and the region’s rising brand premium – are both describe something decidely narrower than they appear to be
Growth, but not at the top
Pulling the data into sharper focus, it helps to understand what kind of stock those 187 schemes represent, and here the report is unambiguous. Luxury now accounts for just 48% of the pipeline, down from a market once dominated by luxury operators, with upscale taking 23%.
Resorts rise from half of completed schemes to 65% of the pipeline. Standalone developments – the format most closely associated with privacy-led ultra-prime buyers – fall from 30% of completions to 16% of what is coming.
Two entries in the brand leaderboard make the point more sharply than any percentage. Wyndham has one completed project in Asia Pacific and 15 in the pipeline. Radisson has one and 13. Between them, two operators with effectively no regional delivery record account for around 15% of everything Savills expects to be built by 2032.
The counting convention amplifies this. Savills confirmed to The Super Prime that there is no minimum unit threshold for inclusion: a scheme qualifies where residential properties are offered for sale under licence from a globally recognised brand, irrespective of size. A six-unit villa enclave and a three-hundred-unit tower each count once.
Phasing works the same way – multiple phases under a single brand are counted once, while phases carrying different brands are counted separately. The data is collected directly from the brands themselves.
The delivery assumption travels furthest. Asked whether the 2032 figure assumes full delivery of the announced pipeline, Savills confirmed that it does, and that the number is therefore a forecast based on pipeline rather than an estimate of completions. No attrition rate is applied. 97% describes announced intent.
What the premium is actually measuring
The report’s most quotable statistic is that the average brand premium across Asia Pacific rose from 23% to 29% in twelve months, still below the global average of 33%. A six-point move in a single year, at the moment the market is diversifying downwards, invites a question about what changed.
The report supplies part of the answer itself, attributing the increase to the market becoming more concentrated in resort and hospitality-led development, formats that achieve some of the strongest premiums globally.
Asked directly whether the movement reflects pricing or sample composition, Savills told The Super Prime that the sample is refreshed and expanded annually, that the latest APAC edition draws on more than double the previous sample size, and that it is structured to remain representative of the market’s distribution across countries, regions and development types. On that basis, the firm said, the increase is driven by pricing dynamics rather than composition.
The two halves of that answer pull against each other. A sample built to mirror the market’s distribution across development types will move as that distribution moves – and the report’s own finding is that the distribution has shifted decisively towards the resort and hospitality-led formats it identifies as commanding the highest premiums.
Representativeness is not the same as comparability. Separating price growth from mix requires a like-for-like subset: the same projects, measured twice. Savills expanded the sample instead.
The more consequential disclosure came unprompted. Savills confirmed that premiums are calculated by comparing branded launch prices against local residential comparables, and that the analysis rests exclusively on primary market transactions, with resale data excluded on the grounds that it distorts premium calculations.
That is methodologically defensible. Resale volumes across Asian branded stock are thin, and thin samples do distort averages. It also means the sector’s headline measure of branded value is a developer pricing metric rather than an owner outcome metric.
The 29% describes what operators and developers achieve at launch. It carries no information about what an owner realises on exit – and the data that would has been removed by design, because in most of these markets it barely exists yet.
Diverse by brand, concentrated by geography
The coverage has read diversification as breadth, but the report is careful to separate the two. Asia Pacific is the world’s most chain-scale diverse branded residential market, and simultaneously one of its most geographically concentrated.
Savills states that beyond regional outperformers Vietnam, Thailand and India, the depth of active markets remains limited, and that this concentration restricts the wider region’s ability to accelerate at the pace seen elsewhere.
“Asia Pacific is the world's most chain-scale diverse branded residential market, and simultaneously one of its most geographically concentrated”
Vietnam leads on 152% forecast growth, India on 126%. Both are impressive rates on modest bases, and both raise the question the report does not address: who the second owner is. Many Asian markets combine condominium quotas, elevated acquisition taxes, and leasehold-only structures for foreign buyers.
Savills frames these not as the healthy mechanism producing domestic demand, but as regulatory friction that may restrict inbound investment and temper growth – explicitly contrasting them with the residence-by-investment schemes, tax treatment and planning efficiency behind the Middle East’s rise.
A pipeline sold to domestic buyers in a market closed to foreign ones has no obvious exit bid, and Asia Pacific’s branded stock has almost no resale history against which to test one.
The strongest element of the forecast is the one attracting the least attention. India’s expansion is urban rather than resort-led, driven by metropolitan wealth and a domestic appetite for internationally branded product. In a market where delivery risk is the buyer’s principal concern, the brand functions as underwriting rather than as a luxury signal – a more durable proposition than a premium measured at launch and never tested at exit.
For anyone buying at the top of this market, 97% is the wrong number to watch; 48% is the right one, and the number that does not exist yet. The resale premium, however, is the one that will truly settle the argument.
