Tag Archives: Airstream

Five Regent Court units sold for more than $650 psf

Regent Court is a 49-unit condominium located along Serangoon Road, near the Boon Keng MRT station

PDF Version Property transactions with contract dates from Sept 18 to Sep 25

There was a flurry of transactions at the 25-year-old Regent Court recently. The 49-unit freehold condominium failed to sell en bloc for $34 million, or $528 psf, after it surfaced last December that the stamp duty for the en-bloc sale agreement in 2007 had not been paid by Regent Development, a nominee of Landquest Pte Ltd. Earlier, some owners also opposed the deal as they claimed that the sales proceeds could not cover their purchase price.

As it turns out, the failed en-bloc deal has enabled owners to ride on the recent rise in property prices. In particular, Regent Court has benefited from the strong take-up rate of new mass-market projects like Airstream @ St Michael’s Road. Property buyers who had come to view Airstream’s showflat would have driven past Regent Court, which is located along Serangoon Road, the main road leading to St Michael’s Road. In August, all 70 units at Airstream, which is developed by Millennium Homes, were sold within day, via balloting at an average price of $1,100 psf. Nearby, developments such as St Michael Regency, One St Michael’s and yet-to-be-completed Beacon Heights have been sold for an average of $800 psf this year, although latest sales saw some units breach $900 psf. Continue reading

Sustainable home sales

Strong sales volume has been the cause for the government’s concern that a bubble was building up, says HAN HUAN MEI

DEFYING all expectations, Singapore’s residential property market has rebounded in the thick of the worst recession the country has seen. Buyers turned up in droves at recent project launches, sending the home sales figures in July to its highest level since the peak in June 2007. New home sales between January and August were just 21 per cent below the total number of homes sold for the whole of 2007.

But going forward, prices of mass market and mid-tier projects are expected to face some resistance. The number of launches is also expected to be limited for the rest of the year. Even as the market was debating the outlook, the government announced anti-speculative measures mid-month which makes it almost certain that sales volume and prices will moderate.

The robust residential market of the past few months seemed to mirror the peak in 2007, notwithstanding the recession. Market sentiment ran high as the stockmarket rally continued for four months starting in March. The strong take-up of new homes, led by mass-market projects back in February, filtered up to the mid-tier segment by April and to the prime segment by May.

Buyers have been prowling showflats, concerned that home prices may be rising again after having corrected from peak levels. It appears that what started out as pent- up demand progressed into investment demand, and to some extent, speculative demand. Developers launched 10,496 new homes for sale from January to August, compared to 6,107 units in 2008. The total number of new homes sold up to end-August was 11,721 units, far exceeding the 4,264 new homes that were sold in all of 2008. Continue reading