Tag Archives: Land Sales

Market uncertainty colours bids for land

Posted on 1 Oct 2009 | Comments Off on Market uncertainty colours bids for land

THE aggressive bids which poured in for government residential land in the last few months show just how much the property market has improved.

But is the recovery real, and how much more can prices rise? The large divergence in bid values shows that even developers themselves may be unsure about what the future holds.

In August, a site at Chestnut Avenue drew 13 bids, and the highest of $280 per square foot (psf) of gross floor area (GFA) was some 87 per cent more than the lowest of $150 psf of GFA.

The spread between bids grew in the next two tender exercises last month. Another plot at Dakota Crescent pulled in 13 bids ranging from $247 to $508 psf of GFA – 106 per cent apart.

The third site at the corner of Yio Chu Kang Road and Seletar Road – with a commercial component – saw a top bid of $376 psf of GFA, which was 144 per cent more than the lowest bid of $154 psf of GFA.

To put these numbers into context, the spread between top and bottom bids for government residential land in 2007 and 2008 hardly exceeded 60 per cent.

Only two of 14 tender exercises recorded on the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s website in those years showed spreads above that level. So it is unusual that just between August and September, bid values in three consecutive tenders have diverged so widely. Continue reading →

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Posted in Property Market / Real Estate

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Don’t blame insufficient land release for property price surge

Posted on 27 Sep 2009 | Comments Off on Don’t blame insufficient land release for property price surge

I REFER to Monday’s Forum Online comment by Mr James Tan (’High price of flats, not affordability, is the issue’) that ‘URA did not release sufficient land to build HDB flats in a timely manner, causing pent-up demand and a sudden surge in prices’ and that ‘in the 1970s, a typical three-room flat in Marine Parade, a choice location, cost about $9,500. Today, a typical flat can fetch as much as $300,000 in the new towns’. That is a 3,000 per cent increase over 40 years.

However, the increase in flat prices is primarily due to Singapore’s growth and prosperity as well as inflation. In 1970, Singapore’s per capita GDP was US$914 and last year it was US$37,597 (S$53,000), and increase of 4,000 per cent. And, of course, good old inflation: If you remember, in old cowboy movies where a dollar coin was made of gold, they would bite it to make sure it was genuine.

Land in Singapore is limited, and I believe the Urban Redevelopment Authority has so far managed supply and demand very well to maintain price levels. One possible problem ahead is that, as younger Singaporeans are better educated, better paid and more affluent, will the older generation be left behind?

Calvin Yong

Source : Straits Times – 26 Sep 2009

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Posted in HDB

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