By Shabnam Muzammil:
Two residential sites at Woodlands and Coronation Road released last Thursday under the confirmed list of the Government Land Sales (GLS) Programme are expected to see healthy demand from property players, analysts said.
Developer interest for the executive condominium (EC) site at Woodlands Avenue 5 could “be fairly keen as ECs are not affected by the anti-speculative property measures, the Additional Buyers’ Stamp Duty and the Loan-to-Valuation measures”, said Joseph Tan, Executive Director at CBRE.
The 226,088 sq ft land parcel is within proximity to Woodlands Regional Centre, which forms part of the upcoming North Coast Innovation Corridor with many commercial, retail and leisure facilities.
“With four more EC sites to be released for the rest of 2013, the government is showing its commitment to further regulate the pricing of ECs to ensure their prices remain affordable,” Tan added.
Meanwhile, the 403,015 sq ft Coronation Road plot will likely be hotly contested as such sites are a rarity, with bids expected to be over S$1,400 psf. The site is located within a Good Class Bungalow (GCB) enclave and is close to popular schools like Nanyang Primary School and Raffles Girls’ School.
“The last time a mixed-use landed site in the prime districts was released was in 2000 at Novena, albeit two smaller plots with a yield of 11 units. The last time a site of a similar size was put up for tender was in 1996 at Binjai Crest, which yielded 125 strata landed homes,” said Desmond Sim, Associate Director, CBRE Research.
Shabnam Muzammil, Senior Journalist at PropertyGuru, wrote this story. To contact her about this or other stories email shabnam@propertyguru.com.sg
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