Good Class Bungalow deals start to rev up

A few big ticket deals in Good Class Bungalow (GCB) Areas were sealed recently.

These include a bungalow in Dalvey Road near the Israeli Embassy that went for S$35.4 million - or S$1,757 per square foot on the freehold land area of 20,143 sq ft.

Located within the White House Park GCB Area, the property spans two storeys and a basement.

It was built about 25 years ago and refurbished a decade ago; it has five bedrooms, a guest room and and a swimming pool.

The property is being sold by a pair of low-profile Singaporean investors who bought the house for S$34 million in 2011 from Teng Ngiek Lian, founder of Target Asset Management.

The buyer in the latest deal is understood to be a Singaporean who is currently living in the US with her husband, a European national and a senior executive with a major US bank in New York.

The existing lease on the Dalvey Road property will end soon and the new owner is expected to find a replacement tenant.

In Yarwood Avenue, a two-storey bungalow with a basement has transacted for S$19.4 million, translating to S$1,201 psf on land area of 16,148 sq ft. The property, which has about 9,000 sq ft built-up area, comes with five bedrooms and a guest room, along with a pool.

Completed in 2001, the house on the site is being sold by Vincent Lee Tua Bah, a retired senior executive in the logistics business, and his wife Cecilia.

The buyer is understood to be related to Justin Goh, who owns Aligent Spring Pte Ltd, which makes precision springs and metal stamping parts that are used in products like printers, DVD recorders, refrigerators and mountain bikes.

Meanwhile, along a stretch of Oriole Crescent near Eng Neo Avenue, Chiang Dong Pheng, the managing director of Standard Chemical Corporation, is understood to have sold a bungalow for S$13.2 million or S$1,269 psf on land area of 10,404 sq ft. Market watchers expect the buyer to redevelop the old house on the site.

Bungalows in the 39 gazetted GCB Areas are the most prestigious form of landed housing in Singapore, with strict planning conditions stipulated by the Urban Redevelopment Authority to preserve their exclusivity and low-rise character.

Experts say that a lot of buyers are waiting for GCBs in prime locations like Dalvey and Cluny. When such properties are made available, they are snapped up within a few weeks as buyers are prepared to pay a premium.

This contrasts with the situation in the past - 2016 and first-half 2017 - when buyers were not prepared to match asking prices.

According to caveats data, year to date seven deals totalling S$181.6 million have been sealed in GCB Areas; this is higher than the five deals totalling S$116 milion in Q1 2017.

Full year 2017, the GCB market posted a strong performance with 41 deals amounting to S$867 million - up from the 2016 tally of 37 transactions that amounted to S$788.5 million.

Consultants are confident that the total value of sales in GCB Areas in 2018 will surpass last year's figure. A lot of big transactions of S$30 million and upwards are expected.

GCB prices are also expected to rise by 10 per cent on average in this year from the end of last year.

The GCB market is benefiting from the overall mood improvement in the Singapore residential sector. All the positive news on en-bloc sales has led many ultra high net-worth individuals who became Singapore citizens around a year ago to think that now's the right time for them to pick up that GCB they have been waiting to buy. The one-percentage point hike in the buyer's stamp duty rate for residential properties announced in February will not deter these buyers.

Only Singapore citizens are allowed to buy landed residential properties within GCB Areas, under a policy change that took effect in the second half of 2012.

While some owners are starting to withdraw their properties from the market in anticipation of higher prices later on, there are also many cases of people wanting to sell their properties. These include elderly couples who no longer need a big house as their children have moved overseas and they themselves would like to spend more time travelling abroad.

Adapted from: The Business Times, 22 March 2018

Freehold Olina Lodge launched for collective sale at S$220m

Owners of Olina Lodge, a freehold project at 15 Holland Hil in prime district 10, hope that third time's the charm in their collective sale attempt.

They have launched their properties collectively this time with a reserve price of S$220 million.

This translates to a land rate of S$1,631 per square foot per plot ratio (psf ppr.

If the developer chooses to build additional 10 per cent GFA for balconies, the land rate could be potentially pared down further to slightly below S$1,500 psf ppr.

There is potentially no development charge payable for redevelopment up to the gross plot ratio of 1.6 due to a high development baseline for the 7,830.7 sq m freehold site.

the land rate is in line with recent collective sale transactions within District 10.

These include Hollandia at S$1,703 psf ppr, Toho Mansion at S$1,805 psf ppr, Crystal Tower at S$1,840 psf ppr, City Towers at S$1,847 psf ppr and Royalville at S$1,960 psf ppr, inclusive of the 10 per cent bonus GFA for balconies.

The successful bidder could build an upscale 12-storey, 128-unit development with an average unit size of 1,000 sq ft, subject to approval from authorities.

So far this year, 14 collective sales clocked total proceeds of S$5.6 billion, which is already 64 per cent of the total proceeds of S$8.7 billion from 30 collective sale sites for the whole of last year.

A number of public tenders for collective sales have closed this year without any sale being concluded.

DBS Group Research property analysts said in a report that they see developers' landbanking appetite remaining strong, but will turn selective especially on the back of a pickup in the supply pipeline, estimated at about 30,000 units to be launched in 2018-2019.

Adapted from: The Business Times, 22 March 2018