(E) Foreign interest in commercial buildings in Singapore

• Underpinning foreigner’s confidence in the Singapore success story, foreign funds are still buying up commercial properties in Singapore. On top of that, one of the international consultancies has restored its agency arm and repositioned itself in the new home market segment as it sees the potential in the new home sale market in the mid-term.

  • (E.1) Beach Rd building sold for $70m

  An Irish private equity firm and renowned international interior design firm Hirsch Bedner Associates have bought In-City Lofts at 700 Beach Road for $70 million. A further $3.5 million will be invested to upgrade the eight-storey building into a boutique office block and renamed 700 Beach.

  The building is located between Golden Mile Tower and Golden Mile Complex and it has 8,500 to 12,000 sq ft floor plates and when the refurbishment is completed in August this year.

  • (E.2) JLL re-entering housing project sales business

  After seven years of absence from the new home sale market, Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) has re-entered this market and clinched appointments to market Floridian, a 336-unit freehold condo development in Bukit Timah by Far East Organization and Wing Tai Holdings, as well as Lippo's Centennia Suites at Kim Seng Road. It is also marketing 34 units at the completed 99-year leasehold Amaryllis Ville condo in the Newton area on behalf of Goodearth Hotel group of Australia.

  A spokesman of JLL said that the firm sees the huge upside for the private new home market which will be brought about by a vibrant and glossy economic prospect with many global events converging in Singapore in near- to medium-term.

(F) News on Government Land Sale (GLS) Programme

• (F.1) Plot ratio increases not needed for now

Minister for National Development Mah Bow Tan said that the government have no plans to increase the plot ratios despite the projected increase in population to 6.5 million people in the long term.

In fact, the new Master Plan 208 has plan for fewer homes. It allows for 327,200 new homes in Singapore. Whereas, the previous plan, MP 2003, allowed for 371,000 homes, 13.4% more than MP 2008.

URA added: 'In the medium term, around 350,000 dwelling units is a comfortable, reasonable number for land safeguarding purposes, which still allows some flexibility to meet market demand. Both MP 2003 and MP 2008 have safeguarded about 350,000 dwelling units.'

An extra 900 hectares of land added for park space in MP 2008 suggests Singaporeans will not be crowded out soon.

(G) News on HDB Resale Market

The HDB resale market had a relatively quiet month with only 2,179 transactions, as compared with 2,339 transactions in the previous month. Likewise, transacted prices have also dipped [see the Comparative Study done on Executive Flats in Tampines over the past five months at G.3].

Table [ 2 ] – Comparison of monthly total HDB resale transactions from January to May 2008

Source of info – HDB inforweb

• (G.1) Sign of resistance spotted in HDB rental market

Although the rents for HDB flats are up due to the spill-over demand from private home market, property analysts do not expect price to rise much further.

Rents for some executive flats in Queenstown have gone as high as $2,900 a month, a price previously seen only with private apartments.

An analyst however quipped that although demand will continue to rise mainly because of the continuous influx of foreign talent, especially with the upcoming casino and international events such as Formula One, rentals are unlikely to surge from current levels as there are already signs of some resistance.

• (G.2) Transactions of HDB Resale flats in May 2008

Below shows the most current HDB resale transactions in May 2008 and the figures can be compared with previous months’ transactions to gauge the prevailing market sentiment.

Table [ 3 ] – Total HDB resale transactions in May 2008

Source of info – HDB inforweb

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