Aileen Tan, a Singaporean, owns seven or eight firms in historic shophouses, including the well-known Blu Jaz shop, close to Kampong Glam’s rich cultural heritage. The area is known for both its bars and shops as well as its textile shops and local food eateries. She has been attempting to engage state officials to help defend neighborhoods and protect residents.
She says,” Income from rich foreigners is entering shophouses and there has been a lot of flipping for revenue and it is having an impact on tenants.” Tan is currently renting a home from her previous employer of two years. She is concerned about the raise that the most recent owner hopes will bring about for her future renewal.  ,
Tan has been conducting business in the area for 20 years, helping other residents promote live song or persuade local artists to paint paintings along Haji Lane. However, she contends that the mix has changed, and that new tenants, such as photo booths and souvenir shops, do n’t care about the historic aspect of storefronts.
The decline in the market for shophouses presents an opportunity, state nearby industry players, to think about the part shophouses should sing within communities. More administrative masters and landlords are putting forth efforts to highlight the buildings ‘ heritage value. For instance, the rich Spanish Portabella family made the purchase of a private shophouse on Neil Road in 2020 with the intent of donating it to aid in research and training in conserving shophouses.  ,
Fang Low, chairman and chief executive of Figment, works with owners of commercial and residential shophouses, encouraging them to “bring up the mind” to shophouses by working with musicians and other artists, usually converting them back to apartments. One of his projects has been repurposing shophouses that became music plates and massage parlours , in one of Singapore’s past red light regions. Shophouses were first homes, and people do n’t realize you could live in these.
Low was alarmed by the” copied and pasted” urban landscape of condominiums and government housing blocks after growing up in one in a shophouse and returning from abroad. We work with mostly international individuals, but as the appreciation for the heritage of shophouses increases, Low says, I am seeing more native Singaporeans.  ,
One for Singaporean is Andy Lim, of JL Family Office, who says he got into the shophouse business” by opportunity” during the pandemic. He bought one shophouse, presently home to his family business on Club Street, in 2020, and a another across the street in 2021— yet as rates continued to rise.  ,
” I realized there was a lot more background in this area than in the real estate I had been buying.” In college I never learnt anything about this heritage”, Lim says.  ,
These owners are willing to pay the higher fees that shophouses then demand. Lim’s next shophouse value S$ 26 million, compared with S$ 21.8 million when it last sold in 2018. However, Lim has kept the room open for the consumer to use as a” social impact hub” rather than renting the second home out to the highest-paying tenant. Among the community groups that rent the building at a fraction of the cost is Lim, who pays about S$ 500, 000 in rent annually.