Ho Bee Investment, the Singapore- based property developer, plans to finance its expansion into Chinese real estate by selling bonds for the first time.

Ho Bee, together with Yanlord Land Group, bought a residential development site in Shanghai for 3.82 billion yuan ($773 million) in February and yesterday set up a $800 million multicurrency medium-term note program.

“The interest-rate environment is in our favor and the active bond market bodes well for us,” Desmond Woon, executive director of finance, said in a phone interview from Singapore today. The notes will likely be denominated in Singapore or US dollars and have tenors of three to five years, he said.

Private home sales in Singapore were just shy of the 2007 record last year, helped by the island nation’s economic recovery. In China, property prices rose 12.8% in April from a year earlier, the fastest on record, as the government tries to cool the market. Singapore dollar bond sales total $7.2 billion this year compared with S$3.4 billion the same period of 2009, Bloomberg data show.

Ho Bee’s “land bank is very low” and the note program gives the company the ability to move fast and take advantage of any acquisition opportunities, Woon said.

“Bilateral bank loans can take two to three months, this way we can access funds much more quickly,” Woon said. The company is monitoring the market and, if concerns surrounding Greece and sovereign debt in Europe dissipate, can move “very soon,” he said.

Ho Bee, which appointed DBS Group Holding. to manage its note programme, has loans worth $140 million maturing next year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.