38 Oxley Road is the top Singapore address in the media right now. What is the big deal about centre of dispute of Singapore’s first Family? How much does this plot of land worth?
More HUDC Estates in heat for enbloc sales
After the 2 recent enbloc deals involving HUDB estates being successfully sealed, namely Rio Casa and Eunosville, two more privatised HUDC estates are in the midst of launching tenders for collective sales process. Rio Casa in Hougang sold last month for $575 million and Eunosville in Sims Avenue sold for $765 million in a deal finalised this week.
The 560-unit Tampines Court may launch its tender in July, while 336-unit Florence Regency in Hougang is in the early stages. Tampines Court owners are seeking at least $960 million for the large Tampines Street 11 site, spanning over 702,000 sq ft.
Built in the 1980s and privatised in 2002, Tampines Court has 14 blocks, with 432 maisonettes and 128 apartments. Its first try of $405 million was dismissed by the Strata Titles Board in 2008. In 2011, it failed to obtain the required level of approval from residents. This is its third bid for a collective sale.
Another privatised HUDC project, Florence Regency in Hougang Avenue 2, will also start its collective sale process soon. It is the first attempt for the development, with about 71 years left on the lease.
Since the 1970s, 18 projects were built under the HUDC or Housing and Urban Development Company scheme. All have since been privatised and nine have been sold, including Shunfu Ville and Raintree Gardens last year.
HUDC sites are said to appeal to developers owing to their location in mature estates and the potential to be further intensified, given their layout and the size of units. However, the huge size of their land plots may put off some bidders, owing to rules requiring developers to build and sell all units within a designated time frame or face huge fines.
Some other potential HUDC Estate for collective sales
1. Braddell View (618K sqft land, 918 units)
2. Chancery Court (123K sqft land. 136 units)
3. Ivory Heights (825K sqft land, 654 units)
4. Laguna Park (677K sqft land, 528 units)
5. Lakeview Estate (242K sqft land, 240 units)
6. Pine Grove (893K sqft land, 660 units)
7. Serangoon Ville (296K sqft land, 244 units)
Eunosville sold enbloc at a premium
The collective sale market here is powering ahead with the sale of privatised HUDC estate Eunosville for $765 million. The price of $765 million at a premium of more than 17 per cent over the $643 million to $653 million the owners had asked for when the site was launched for tender in April.
The 330-unit Eunosville, built in the 1980s, could make way for as many as 1,399 units in a new project. The site has been sold to a Jardine Matheson Group unit, MCL Land, at the second-highest price ever for former HUDC estates, after Farrer Court was sold for about $1.34 billion in 2007. It was the estate’s second try at a collective sale after an unsuccessful bid in 2013.
The purchase costs, which includes the sale price and an additional $194 million of government charges, works out to a land rate of $909 per sq ft per plot ratio. The charges are payable to the state to intensify land use to a gross plot ratio of 2.8 and to top up the lease to a fresh 99 years.
Built in the late 1980s, the project has about 71 years left on the lease. It has 255 maisonettes over six residential blocks and four walk-up apartment blocks with 75 units. Each owner stands to get about $2.25 million to $2.41 million upon completion of the deal, subject to sale conditions.
The site could be rebuilt into a 1,399-unit development with an average apartment size of 70 sq m. The new units could be sold for an average of about $1,700 to $1,750 psf.
The latest deal came after the recent sale of Rio Casa estate in Hougang and mixed-use development Goh & Goh Building in Upper Bukit Timah Road, and One Tree Hill Gardens in the prime District 10. It is the fourth successful collective sale this year amid recovering sentiment and developers’ optimism over residential property.
The four collective sales year to date total slightly over S$1.5 billion. For the whole of 2016, there were three collectives sales – Raintree Gardens in Potong Pasir, Shunfu Ville in Marymount area and Harbour View Gardens in the West Coast area. The total value added up to slightly over S$1 billion. In 2015, the solo collective sale transaction was the S$380 million sale of the commercial/residential Thong Sia Building in Bideford Road. The peak year for en bloc sales was 2007, with 88 deals amounting to S$11.5 billion.
The collective sale fever cooled when the property market tanked during the 2008 global financial crisis though things started to revive again in 2010, when there were 38 collective sales, followed by 51 transactions the following year before activity began to wane again amid a price gap between owners of en bloc properties and developers.
Between 2014 and 2016, only five sold during this period out of 25 collective sale sites launched; implying that the other 20 sites were priced above what the market could bear.
Citimac Industrial Complex up for enbloc sale again
The freehold development in the heart of Tai Seng industrial and commercial hub is up for sale again. The 110-unit industrial property of 1.3 ha size in MacPherson Road, Citimac Industrial Complex, has been put up for collective sale with a price tag of at least $430 million this time.
The eventual buyer would have to pay an additional $99 million in development charge (DC) for intensifying the land use — translating to a cost of $1,081 psf per plot ratio.
The redevelopment site is zoned “Business 1-White”, with a gross plot ratio of 3.5 under the URA Master Plan 2014. It can potentially yield a maximum gross floor area of 489,262 sq ft, of which at least 349,473 sq ft has to be for Business 1 or light industrial use, with the remaining for “white” use, which includes retail or commercial uses.
The white component is ideal for retail and F&B, such as cafes, restaurants and foodcourts, to tap on the growing catchment of workers in this up-and-coming F&B cluster, as well as residents in the neighbourhood,
BreadTalk Group, Sakae Holdings, Charles & Keith, Tee Yih Jia Group, Malaysia Dairy Industries and Lian Beng Group are among the many big names in the vicinity.
In February Mapletree opened its mixed-use development 18 Tai Seng, which boasts tenants such as Liao Fan Hawker Chan, Japanese Soba Noodles Tsuta and Tim Ho Wan.
Private properties rose to 27% of total housing stock
THE number and proportion of private properties in Singapore grew in the decade between 2006 and last year. The total number of private condominium units and landed homes went up from 243,000 to 372,000 in that time, taking their share of the overall dwelling units from the 22 per cent in 2006 to 27 per cent last year.
Meanwhile, the number of Housing Development Board (HDB) flats grew from 880,000 units to 1,011,000 during the period. But despite this increase, the proportion of HDB flats out of the total housing stock went down from 78 per cent to 73 per cent.
National Development Minister Lawrence Wong unveiled these figures in Parliament. The ratio is “expected to remain stable” over the next few years, with 72 per cent of all dwelling units projected to be HDB flats in 2020.
However, he added, this proportion refers only to the housing stock in Singapore – not the total proportion of people living in flats, which remains at about 80 per cent.
Leases running out for these old homes
The reality of an expiring lease is slowly seeping in for an estimated 30 households – out of 190 private landed homes – still living in the Geylang Lorong 3 estate.
Besides Geylang Lorong 3, there are at least three other private residential estates with fewer than 40 years left on the lease. At Jalan Chempaka Kuning in Bedok, a 70-year leasehold property with 17 years left, residents have been asking the land’s trustee to extend the lease at each annual general meeting.
Four private estates with less than 40 years of lease left:
A) GEYLANG LORONG 3
Tenure: 60-year leasehold from 1960 Lease expiry: 2020
B) JALAN CHEMPAKA KUNING/PUTEH
Tenure: 70-year leasehold from 1964 Lease expiry: 2034
C) FUYONG ESTATE, BUKIT TIMAH
Tenure: 99-year leasehold from 1947 Lease expiry: 2046
D) RIFLE RANGE ROAD
Tenure: 99-year leasehold from 1952 Lease expiry: 2051
Singapore Primary home sales soar 82%
The recent government figures on private home sales signal a turnaround in the market. Figures showed that, in the primary market, developers sold 1,780 new private homes last month, the strongest showing since the 1,806 units moved in June 2013. This was when sales were still buoyant just before the rollout of the Total Debt Servicing Ratio (TDSR) framework.
The March 2017 sales volume is up nearly 82 per cent from February’s 979 units, and a 111 per cent jump from the 843 units sold in March 2016.
Two well-received new launches (Grandeur Park Residences and Park Place Residences at PLQ) have great sales, while continuing sales in earlier projects (such as Parc Riviera, The Santorini and The Clement Canopy), attributed to the confidence-booster from the government’s maiden tweaks to the cooling measures announced on March 10. The best-selling private-housing project in March was Chip Eng Seng’s Grandeur Park Residences next to Tanah Merah MRT Station, with 484 units sold at a median price of S$1,406 psf; this was followed by Park Place Residences at PLQ, where 217 units were transacted at a median price of S$1,805 psf.
The jubilant home-buying mood was reflected not only in the data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), based on its survey of licensed developers, but also in the secondary market.
Resale transactions of private homes rose to 942 units in March, translating to increases of more than 50 per cent month on month and year on year. The URA’s definition of resales includes developers’ sales in delicensed projects.
Based on the latest data released by the URA, the preliminary Q1 2017 figure for new sales of private homes stands at 3,141 – up from 2,316 units in Q4 2016 and 1,419 units in Q1 2016; the Q1 2017 figure was also the strongest showing since Q2 2013’s 4,538 units.
Developers also sold 578 executive condominium (EC) units last month, higher than the 329 units moved in February, and the 485 moved in March last year. The preliminary Q1 2017 new EC sales by developers is 1,091 units, surpassing the 734 units in the previous quarter and the 762 units in Q1 2016.
Among ECs, Qingjian Realty’s iNz Residence in Choa Chu Kang was the top seller; it sold 187 units at a median price of S$774 psf.The developers’ new private home sales at the new two major new launches – Seaside Residences in Siglap Road and Artra next to Redhill MRT Station were well received as well. Seaside Residences moved almost 400 units while Artra moved 130 units a few days ago.
