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The collective sale fever in Singapore is gathering steam as the news of record enbloc deals and potential sites looms. Among the latest that are joining the fever are:
1. Pine Grove ($1.65B)
Owners of the 660-unit former HUDC estate are aiming to achieve the largest collective sale deal in Singapore. The price tag of $1.65B is much higher than the last record of $1.34B deal made in Farrer Court in 2007.
An extraordinary general meeting will be held on Oct 29 to get at least 80 per cent of owners to back the en-bloc sale. Based on the minimum reserve price, each owner is looking at receiving $2.08 million to $2.64 million per unit.
It will be the estate’s 3rd attempt for a collective sale after a no-bid attempt in 2011 following the owners raising the reserve price from $1.33 billion to $1.7 billion. Its first try was in 2008. The 99-year leasehold project has 66 years left on its tenure
2. Braddell View ($2B)
Braddell View, the largest of Singapore’s 18 HUDC estates and the last to be privatised in March this year, is planning to jump on the en bloc bandwagon.
The 918-unit estate is holding an extraordinary general meeting on Oct 10 to form a collective sales committee to kick-start the process.
The reserve price for the 1.124 million sq ft development is S$2 billion. If successful, this would easily eclipse Pine Grove’s S$1.65 billion en bloc attempt. The 99-year lease Braddell View development has 63years left on its lease.
3. Spring Grove ($1B)
Owners in the 325-unit estate are targeting at least $1 billion sales price. They had asked for $1.39 billion in 2014. A $1 billion price works out to about $1,807 per sq ft (psf), based on a maximum gross floor area of 553,377 sq ft. This is above the $1,285 psf to $1,438 psf that units in the estate have fetched so far this year.
There are quite a lot of sales en bloc going on now, but not that many are in the prime district, so that’s something going for this development.
4. Normanton Park ($0.8B) — updated: sold at $830.1M
It will be second-time lucky in its collective-sale bid at an $800 million reserve price for the hopeful owners at Normanton Park.
The Normanton Park owners are among those capitalising on the collective-sale fever. It failed in its previous bid in 2015. The tender will close today on Oct 5 at 3pm.
Based on the reserve price, each Normanton Park unit owner could get between $1.6 million and $1.8 million. This translates to a land rate of about $898 per sq ft per plot ratio (psf ppr), which includes a differential premium for intensification of the site of about $225.3 million, and a top-up premium of $220.6 million for a fresh 99-year lease.
Update: Normanton Park has been sold to Kingsford Huray Development for S$830.1 million — translating to a land price of approximately S$969 per square foot per plot ratio (psf ppr), is the highest land rate for a 99-year leasehold collective sale site this year.
Each home owner will stand to receive about S$1.68 million to S$1.86 million. Kingsford will have to fork out a premium of about S$231.1 million top up the lease to another 99 years, and top up about S$283.4 million to redevelop the site to a gross plot ratio of 2.1.
5. ICB Shopping Centre ($65m)
This is the first en bloc attempt by ICB Shopping Centre, a mixed-use development in Yio Chu Kang Roadwhich is more than 30 years old. It comprises six apartment units (of between 1,324 sq ft and 1,550 sq ft) and 13 retail units. The site about 1 km from Nex shopping mall and Serangoon MRT station, and is also near eateries and other small retail shopping areas.
The development’s residential and commercial owners are looking for a price of S$65 million to S$70 million. Based on its maximum potential gross floor area (GFA), the asking price range translates to a unit price of about S$1,390 per sq ft (psf) to S$1,500 psf.
The development sits on a freehold plot with a land area of 15,548 sq ft. It has a current GFA of 25,123 sq ft, but with a plot ratio of 3.0, it can be built to a maximum permissible GFA of 46,643 sq ft.
Concerns about current enbloc fever
Though the enbloc fever looks to getting even hotter, the concerns among the industry players are about the sustainability of the momentum over the long run. The market can only absorb one or two big sites. Some of the record-aiming enbloc sites have such huge sizes that the interested developers will need to factor in expected costs if they cannot finish selling the completed units.
Selling all the units within five years of buying the land to avoid additional buyer’s stamp duty (ABSD) will pose a challenge. This could affect the price developers are prepared to pay for the site.
Projects such as The Interlace and d’Leedon, which were built on large sites sold during the 2007 en-bloc boom, are still left with unsold units, together with the existing launches which have unsold inventory. New launches will face some fierce competition among the existing unsold units as well as among themselves.
To top it off, the property rental market has yet shown signs of shaking off its lull as well amidst the economic/employment uncertainty. Unless the authorities loose up the policy of workforce, and new jobs emerge from the current lacklustre market, it remains to be seen if new launches can provide good returns to prospective buyers.
Chevron House, a commercial building located near the entrances to the Raffles Place MRT station, is reportedly available for sale. The building owner, Deka Immobilien GmbH — a unit of DekaBank Group of Germany — bought the premises in 2010 for around S$420M. The previous owner was a Goldman SachGroup-managed property fund.
The market price was understood to be S$700M based on anonymous sources. Recent prominent completed commercial deals includes:
– S$2.6B bid led by Malaysian IOI on a Marina Bay white site
– Sale of Sime Darby Centre in Bt Timah area by Blackstone to Tuan Sing
– Purchase of Wilkie Edge from Capitaland by Lian Beng Group
Chevron House is a skyscraper building in CBD housing Chevron Corp. The 262,650 sqft building consists of a 4-storey retail podium with a basement as well as a 29-storey office block.
OCEAN Network Express is said to be taking up some 50,000 sq ft of office space at Marina One. The joint-venture company of Japan’s “Big Three” shipping lines, is a consolidation of the container shipping businesses of Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha (K Line), Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) and Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha (NYK Line). It includes their worldwide terminal operation businesses, except those in Japan. Ocean Network Express is planning to use the new office spanning 1½ floors as its regional and global headquarters.
Macquarie Bank, which is now at Marina Bay Financial Centre Tower 2, is also said to be in advanced negotiations for some 50,000 sq ft of office space at Marina One.
The two new office towers at Marina One, an integrated development in downtown Marina Bay, are due to be completed soon. Developed by M+S, Marina One’s 1.88 million sq ft Grade-A office space is said to be about 70 per cent pre-leased ahead of its completion.
The first-half of 2017 saw a good volume of pre-committed space in the upcoming premium developments such as Marina One and UIC Building in the CBD.
At Guoco Tower of Tanjong Pagar Centre, which is already 90 % committed, Thai rubber group Sri Trang Agro-Industry Public Company is moving into close to 6,000 sq ft of office space on the 25th floor in early December, letting go of its existing 5,100 sq ft office at One Raffles Place where it has been operating for more than 10 years.
Grade-A CBD rents rose by 1.7 % in Q2 2017 to about S$8.51 psf pm, the first increase in nine quarters, led by a 5.8 % rise in premium office rents in Marina Bay.
The Urban Redevelopment Authority is slated to release the second-quarter real estate statistics on July 28.
Who will be buying the most expensive apartment or “bungalow in the sky” in Singapore? The asking price for a new three-storey Singapore penthouse, complete with a private pool on the 64th floor, has reached more than $100 million. This amount of money can well easily buy one a few good-class bungalows (GCBs) in District 9/10.
The Wallich Residence’s penthouse is in the tallest building in Singapore, the island of well-heeled stability that attracts the super-rich from its less-developed South-east Asian neighbours, as well as multi-millionaires from mainland China.
It will test the endurance of demand for luxury property in the city-state – the part of the market that has taken the biggest hit from measures aimed at cooling down prices in recent years.
Prices for luxury homes in Singapore have fallen 15-20 % from a 2013 peak. However the recent events has cause optimism among market insiders to foresee a turnaround – at least at the top end of the market – and is forecasting a 3-5 % increase in luxury prices this year, citing demand from both locals and foreigners who feel the market is bottoming out.
The volume of transactions in the first four months of the year in Singapore’s core central region was 35% higher than in the same period last year. The Core Central Region includes the popular areas among wealthy foreigners — the Orchard Road shopping area and Sentosa island.
Buying by foreigners has picked up since the start of the year at the developer’s high-end Leedon Residence project, near the 150-year-old Singapore Botanic Gardens. GuocoLand is part of Malaysian conglomerate Hong Leong Group, headed by billionaire Quek Leng Chan.
The recent tightening of property market controls in places like Hong Kong and Australia played a part in attracting foreign demand to Singapore’s luxury property this year. While prices in Hong Kong tripled and Sydney’s doubled over the past decade, Singapore prices rose just 29 %.
City Developments (CDL), one of the largest Singapore developers, also said the average sales price at its high-end Gramercy Park project has risen to more than $2,800 per sq ft in recent months, up 8 % from a year ago, and foreign buyers accounted for three-quarters of the project so far.
One may note though that the Singapore’s residential market has fallen for 15 straight quarters to log its longest losing streak since official records began in 1975. Analysts expect a bottoming of prices in the year 2017.
Singapore introduced property price cooling measures to curb speculation for the past 7 years. Some measures were relaxed slightly this year but the authorities announced that there would be no more rolling back of the remaining measures for now.
More information of the Penthouse can be found at the following link.
A highly anticipated redevelopment project in Raffles Place, touted for years, was finally unveiled over the week by the press. A 51-storey mixed-use development – slated for completion in the first half of 2021 – will be built on the site. It will comprise office space, serviced residences, a multi-storey carpark, a food centre and shops.
The redevelopment will be led by CapitaLand in a joint venture (JV) for an estimated cost of $1.82 billion. The JV partners are: CapitaLand, CapitaLand Commercial Trust (CCT) and Mitsubishi Estate Co (MEC).
Of the $1.82 billion development cost, about 52.6 %, or $957.8 million, was attributed to charges for the intensification of land use and other land-related costs.
At 280m high, it will be among the tallest buildings in the heart of the Central Business District. The other highlights of the plan include:
– 635,000 sq ft of net lettable area
– 29 floors of Grade A office space
– 299 serviced residences over eight storeys managed by CapitaLand’s The Ascott – five floors of carpark space
– 12,000 sq ft of retail space at ground level
– a shared four-storey-high “Green Oasis”, where tenants can hold meetings or other activities amid lush greenery
– a new food centre owned by the government, which will house former stallholders of Market Street Food Centre in Golden Shoe Car Park on the second and third levels of the new building’s podium. In the meantime, starting from 1 Aug, the stallholders will be at an interim centre next to Telok Ayer MRT station
– flexible offices and co-working spaces.
Based on recent estimates from JLL, the average rental values for its overall CBD Grade A and Marina Bay offices rose for the first time in Q2 2017 since 2 years ago. The area of concern, which includes Raffles Place, Marina Bay, Tanjong Pagar/Shenton Way and Marina Centre, rose 0.6% quarter-on-quarter in Q2 2017, at $8.49 psf. The major signings include FAcebook’s takeup of more than 250,000 sqft in Marina One, and Uber’s 55,000 sqft in Guoco Tower. The space at Asia Square vacated by Google last year has also been filled. Microsoft signed up 125,000 sqft in Frasers Tower which is due for completion in 2018.
Located at the junction of Wilkie Road and Selegie Road, Wilkie Edge is a leasehold 12-storey development comprising office and retail units as well as a serviced residence, Citadines Mount Sophia Singapore. It has 88 years left on the lease. The mixed-use commercial and residential building located near Little India, is being sold for S$280 million — works out to a price of S$1,812 per square foot (psf) based on the building’s net lettable area, and a price of S$1,299 psf based on gross floor area.
Lian Beng Group and Apricot Capital, the private investment firm of Super Group’s Teo family, have agreed to acquire Wilkie Edge from CapitaLand Commercial Trust (CCT).
The sale is expected to be completed in September. The sale consideration is 39.3 % above Wilkie Edge’s valuation of S$201 million or S$1,301 psf as at Dec 31, and 53.3 % higher than its original purchase price of S$182.7 million in 2008.
Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) and Kajima Development are planning to develop more than 600 residential units and a retail/commercial component with a gross floor area of about 310,000 square feet on a 99-year leasehold site in the new Bidadari Estate that they have won the tender. The two teamed up to form an equal partnership that placed the top bid for the site at a tender conducted by the Housing & Development Board.
The winning bid of S$1.132 billion translates to S$1,181 per square foot plot ratio based on the maximum gross floor area of 958,450 sq ft allowed for the commercial and residential site next to Woodleigh MRT Station.
The site’s proximity to popular primary schools and other educational institutions and the green environment in the Bidadari Estate including a park and a lake are the key attractions.
As part of the tender conditions, the successful bidder will also have to build a 6,000 square metre community club, a 2,190 sq m neighbourhood police centre, a commercial bridge towards Bidadari Park and an underpass to connect to the bus interchange as part of the development.
Mercer’s annual Cost of Living Survey finds African, Asian, and European cities dominate the list of most expensive locations for working abroad
According to Mercer’s 2017 Global Talent Trends Study, fair and competitive pay as well as opportunities for promotion are top priorities for employees this year – not surprising given the current climate of uncertainty and change.
Mercer’s 23rd annual Cost of Living Survey finds that factors like instability of housing markets and inflation for goods and services contribute to the overall cost of doing business in today’s global environment.
Mercer’s 2017 Cost of Living Survey finds Asian and European cities – particularly Hong Kong (2), Tokyo (3), Zurich (4), and Singapore (5) – top the list of most expensive cities for expatriates. The costliest city, driven by cost of goods and security, is Luanda (1), the capital of Angola. Other cities appearing in the top 10 of Mercer’s costliest cities for expatriates are Seoul (6), Geneva (7), Shanghai (8), New York City (9), and Bern (10). The world’s least expensive cities for expatriates, according to Mercer’s survey, are Tunis (209), Bishkek (208), and Skopje (206).
Asia Pacific
Five of the top 10 cities in this year’s ranking are in Asia. Hong Kong (2) is the most expensive city as a result of its currency pegged to the US dollar, which drove up the cost of accommodations locally. This global financial center is followed by Tokyo (3), Singapore (5), Seoul (6), and Shanghai (8).
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