Our top Singapore and regional property stories.
Location, pricing still key to attracting buyers
Last year’s property launches showed that home buyers go for reasonably priced homes in good locations, with three projects performing exceptionally well during their launch primarily due to pricing and location, despite the cooling measures.
A report by The Straits Times said that High Park Residences in Sengkang moved 1,169 units at a median price of $989 psf, while North Park Residences in Yishun sold 486 units at a median price of $1,374 psf. Over in the city fringe area, The Poiz Residences in Potong Pasir moved 277 units at a median price of $1,440 psf during its launch.
ERA Realty Key Executive Officer, Eugene Lim, noted that projects that sold well in 2015 were all attractively priced, situated close to an upcoming or existing MRT station, and near various amenities like shopping malls and reputable schools.
“This year, we expect buyers to be equally discerning of new projects. Prices and location should remain the determining factors behind a project’s performance.”
According to PropNex Realty’s Chief Executive, Mohamed Ismail, a project is considered highly attractive to home buyers when they are priced towards the lower end for the area it is located. For the Core Central Region, this would be closer to $2,000 psf and nearer to $1,000 psf for the Outside Central Region. The Rest of Central Region, on the other hand, would be closer to $1,500 psf. “However, a premium may be commanded due to the location and availability of transportation – near the MRT – or the nature of the project, such as a mixed development,” said Ismail.
He noted that buyers showed a willingness to pay a premium for mixed-use projects like J Gateway, DUO Residences and North Park Residences. “But for most cases, the price is the main factor,” he said.
This comes as the “restrictive loan environment prevents developers from setting a price that is unrealistically high,” he added.
Nearly 230 babies born to couples living in PPHS flats
Close to 230 babies have been born to couples living in Parenthood Provisional Housing Scheme (PPHS) flats, wrote Senior Minister of State (Prime Minister’s Office) Josephine Teo in a recent Facebook post, reported Channel NewsAsia.
Introduced in January 2013, the scheme offers interim housing for those who have booked an uncompleted HDB unit under the Build-to-Order (BTO) or Sale of Balance Flats (SBF) exercises. Applicants under the Fiancé/Fiancée Scheme or married couples, and widowed or divorced parents with children, are eligible to rent a flat under the PPHS.
Currently, there are around 1,900 PPHS flats in several locations including Jurong, Tiong Bahru and Commonwealth, said Teo, who also helps oversee the National Population and Talent Division (NPTD).
She noted that couples need not wait until their BTO flats are completed before marrying or having a child since PPHS offers a temporary rental option within an HDB setting. “It is a helpful scheme which I hope HDB will similarly scale up if there’s demand,” she added.
National Development Minister Lawrence Wong had revealed that this year’s supply of BTO flats will increase by 3,000 units from last year to 18,000 units. This comes after the last BTO exercise in November 2015 saw a healthy response.
“With affordable HDB housing more readily available now, young couples should not wait too long to welcome (a) baby to the family,” said Teo.
PropertyGuru acquires Ensign Media’s real estate businesses
PropertyGuru on Wednesday (13 January) announced its latest acquisition following the purchase of Ensign Media’s real estate media businesses, Property Report and Asia Property Awards.
Ensign Media — which owns Property Report, a regional luxury property and lifestyle magazine and website, and Asia Property Awards, the region’s biggest property industry awards that are held in nine countries annually — is headquartered in Singapore.
PropertyGuru has 14 million users while Property Report has 70,000 online and offline readers. Following this acquisition, these users will have combined access to PropertyGuru’s 600 monthly research and news articles published in three languages across four markets, and Property Report’s 100 plus online features per month.
“The latest acquisition strengthens [PropertyGuru’s] content, geographic reach and services we provide to real estate developers regionally,” said Steve Melhuish, PropertyGuru co-founder and group CEO.
The group also said the acquisition will strengthen its integrated property media capability — combining the company’s leading online property sites and its property shows with a leading print and online publication and a highly successful and prestigious property industry awards platform in Asia.
“The Asia Property Awards are already the region’s largest and most respected real estate awards,” said Ensign founder Terry Blackburn, “now with PropertyGuru’s support, [Asia Property Awards] will be even bigger in 2016 and the years ahead.”
With this full asset purchase, Ensign Media’s existing staff will be absorbed into PropertyGuru, the press release stated.
Colliers Singapore appoints new business leaders
Colliers International has announced two senior appointments to strengthen its Singapore team.
Duncan White will head up the Office Services team while Anthea To will lead Research and Advisory.
White will be responsible for driving Colliers’ Office Services business, and To will focus on creating market-leading, forward-looking research and thought leadership to support clients and industry professionals.
Commenting, Tang Wei Leng, Managing Director of Colliers International, Singapore, said: “Our most important resource is our people. In building our business, we are always seeking to attract, grow and retain the best talent the market has to offer.
“We chose Duncan and Anthea because they are ambitious, passionate, driven and fit well into our collaborative and high-performance culture. Duncan’s promotion demonstrates our commitment to accelerate the success of our people,” she added.
The new business leaders will report directly to Tang and work closely with the regional team.
Meanwhile, former Deputy Managing Director, Calvin Yeo, has left the company, while Grace Ng will continue to head up the Auction team and grow the local brokerage business, noted Colliers.
Property agents turn to Uber amidst chilly housing market
Due to the slump in home sales and the difficulty in securing deals amidst fierce competition, some property agents in Singapore are driving for Uber, reported Bloomberg.
Uber is a tech firm that allows users to utilise the service of a taxi or private car via their smartphone.
“The market is slow because of the cooling measures. We have no choice; we have to come up with means to make ends meet,” said 50-year-old Billy Loh, who started working as a property agent in 2008, but began driving for Uber late last year.
By driving passengers around Singapore, he earns $3,000 per month on average, a far cry from the $30,000 commission he could get selling a unit during the market’s heyday.
Although property agents in other countries typically take on other jobs to supplement their income when the market is not doing so well, the situation in Singapore is very gloomy. Among the world’s major housing markets, it suffered the highest price drop in 2015, and total transaction levels have plummeted by 68 percent since 2012. In fact, developers only managed to move around 7,000 new homes last year, according to SLP International Property Consultants.
The city-state also has a relatively large number of property agents compared with the volume of deals. There are more than 30,000 registered estate agents, ten times the volume of monthly transactions. In comparison, there are only 1,840 agents in the state of New South Wales in Australia who handle an average of 8,160 monthly transactions, noted CoreLogic Inc.
To help agents cope with the weak residential market, the Institute of Estate Agents in Singapore is offering courses and helping agents to get trained in other jobs.
Teaching property agents other skills would enable them to “at least earn a fixed income rather than only rely on commissions in this market,” said its President Jeff Foo.
S’pore GDP beats expectations, up 2.1% in 2015
The Singapore economy beat many analysts’ expectations, growing 2.1 percent in 2015, which is in line with government forecasts, based on advance GDP estimates from the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI).
According to a report by Channel NewsAsia, the central bank’s latest quarterly survey last month revealed that private sector economists had expected full-year GDP growth to reach 1.9 percent while the government had predicted growth of “close to two percent”.
In Q4 2015, the GDP expanded by two percent from the previous year, up slightly from the 1.8 percent growth registered in Q3 2015. On a quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted annualised basis, the economy grew 5.7 percent in Q4, a significant increase from the 1.7 percent growth seen in the previous quarter.
The manufacturing sector contracted by six percent in Q4, making it the “weakest link” for the economy.
“Both cyclical and structural challenges are dampening the growth prospects of this sector. External competition, rising business costs and weak external demand were key challenges facing the manufacturing sector for the past years,” said DBS senior economist Irvin Seah.
The construction sector grew 2.2 percent, an improvement from the 1.1 percent growth posted during the previous quarter while the services sector expanded by 3.2 percent.
Despite beating expectations, Seah noted that overall economic growth was at its slowest in six years.
Moreover, analysts say risks remain with the potential capital flight that may result from fears of further deceleration within the Chinese economy and from further US interest rate hikes.
“(The) growth outlook in the next six to nine months will remain tepid before an improvement in the later part of 2016 can be expected. This should bring overall GDP growth for 2016 to 2.1 percent,” added Seah.
Siblings settle dispute over parents’ $20m assets
Eight siblings have settled a $20 million tussle over their late parents’ estate without going through a High Court trial.
The dispute focused on two semi-detached homes in Richards Avenue off Upper Serangoon Road – one of which was in the name of the eldest child Tan Nga Kok, while the other was in the name of Tan Thian Kok, the third child, reported The Straits Times.
The other six siblings claimed that the two houses were part of the family’s eight properties; hence, should be included in the list of assets to be equally divided among them following their father Tan Tuan Hock’s death in 2011.
However, the two said they were the sole beneficiaries of the properties.
As a result, the six siblings took their two brothers to court, alleging that the two homes were merely being held in trust for them.
A trial was originally set to start on 12 January, but the parties arrived at an agreement, the terms of which are confidential.
The late Mr Tan and his wife, Madam Soh Whee Hong, were teachers who migrated from China to Singapore in the 1940s. The couple acquired a row of four houses in Richards Avenue in 1965, with two being registered in the name of a relative and the other two in Madam Soh’s mother’s name.
The two properties were rented out until the two brothers moved into the homes in the 1980s. The other two houses were sold.
Tan Nga Kok alleged that his parents intended to give him the property, but it was not immediately transferred to him as he had yet to reach the age of 21. Tan Thian Kok, on the other hand, claimed that the house was purchased by their grandmother, who later gave it to him.
The plaintiffs contended that the homes were owned by their father, who did not intend for the two to be the sole beneficiaries, citing letters apparently written by their father saying he used the names of relatives as it was ‘not convenient’ for him and his wife to purchase four homes in their own names, and that he later temporarily used the names of his children.
Aside from the Richards Avenue homes, the patriarch also acquired six other properties.
Each sibling would have received $2.5 million had the two homes been included in the pool of assets. However, the share would shrink to $1.5 million if the defendants had their way.
GuocoLand appoints manager for Singapore, Malaysia hotels
GuocoLand Limited recently announced that it appointed AccorHotels as the manager of its two newly-built hotels at Tanjong Pagar Centre, Singapore and Damansara City, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
“These are two landmark mixed-use developments that are sure to bring exciting new lifestyle options to vibrant, urban areas of Singapore and Kuala Lumpur,” said Tasos Kousloglou, Executive Vice President of Strategic Advisory & Asset Management at JLL Hotels & Hospitality, which served as GuocoLand’s exclusive advisor for the deal.
The 222-room Sofitel Singapore City Centre will form part of the upcoming multi-billion dollar Tanjong Pagar Centre development.
Situated between Chinatown and the central business district, Tanjong Pagar Centre will feature the tallest building in Singapore at 290 metres comprising a residential and office tower, retail and event spaces as well as the luxury Sofitel hotel.
In a statement, GuocoLand said Sofitel Singapore City Centre will feature an outdoor pool, an executive lounge, a 620 sqm ballroom and eight meeting rooms, as well as world-class restaurants and bars.
Meanwhile, Sofitel Kuala Lumpur Damansara will be an integral part of the new 8.5 acre integrated development within the upmarket Damansara Heights enclave called Damansara City, which comprises two Grade A office towers, two luxury high-rise residences, and an F&B-centric lifestyle mall in addition to the hotel.
Set to open in the second half of 2016, the 312-room Sofitel will be the first internationally branded luxury hotel within the Damansara area.
Sofitel Singapore City Centre and the Sofitel Kuala Lumpur Damansara will add a total of 534 rooms to AccorHotel’s luxury brand portfolio.
 |
|||
 |
This article was first published in the print version The PropertyGuru News & Views. Download PDF of full print issues or read more stories now! |
||