Pender Court, an apartment complex at the foot of Mount Faber is the most recent en bloc site to put up for sale, and the sixth collective sale released since the start of 2010.
While the number of en bloc sales for this year remains lower than the 2007 market peak, many analysts and market watchers said that such offerings have gained pace recently.
They pointed out that property owners are trying to ride on this new trend in the property market, hoping to get good deals out of it.
Some analysts have also said that the increasing number of sites being offered in the collective sales market also suggests that property owners are becoming confident of striking a new deal with developers, whom they think are still hungry for more land sites.
Pender Court is a six-storey, 48-unit apartment complex built in the 80s. It sits on a land plot measuring 65,480 square feet.
Its marketing agent, Credo Real Estate, said that sellers are expecting to offer between $100 million and $108 million, and each of the owners can receive between $2 million to $2.2 million if the sale is successful.
The launch of the site came just a few days after the 40-unit Changi Complex at the junction of Bedok Road and Upper Changi Road was put up for sale. It has a price tag of between $45 million and $48 million.
However, several analysts believe that the initial pick-up for the site has little to do with developers’ appetite to replenish their land banks.
According to Donald Han, managing director of Cushman and Wakefield, developers still prefer to bid for a land site through the government land sales (GLS) programme rather than through en bloc sales.
"The GLS is more straightforward for developers. If the bid is successful, the site is yours within four months. A good developer can obtain full planning approval and start offering units for public launch within 12 months," said Mr. Han.
But he believes that the collective sales market is showing early signs of picking up with the release of the two en bloc sites. But he reckons that this is far from a feverish pitch and no where near to the property boom seen in 2007.
Mr. Han added that developer’s land banks were low due to the boom in high-end and luxury home sales in 2007, and en bloc sales were the only source of land supply available to property developers.
Nicholas Mak, a real estate lecturer at Ngee Ann Polytechnic, also shared the same sentiment. He said that "during the property boom in 2007, there was an average of one enbloc sale per week. We are already approaching the end of the third month this year but we haven’t seen any enbloc residential sale yet.”
Mr. Mak believes that there will be more attempts than successes at collective sales deals and creating demand is one way for developers to closely monitor the enbloc market.
"In this case if they don’t try they don’t know if there is demand. Some of these agents have to prepare ahead of time," said Mr. Mak.