The luxury-condominium segment in the traditional prime districts of Singapore continues to see signs of distress. At JLL’s auction on Feb 26, a four-bedroom unit at The Grange was put up for sale. A fore- closed property (mortgagee sale), the opening price at the auction was $4.3 million. The unit received an opening bid of $4.1 million, before it was sold for $4.15 million, or $1,802 psf. The buyer is said to be a Singaporean.
Compared with the former owner’s purchase price of $6.2 million ($2,692 psf) in May 2008, the sale price reflects a drop of 33%. In fact, the price of the 17th-floor unit is now on a par with its last sub-sale price in October 2006, when it also changed hands for $4.15 million ($1,802 psf), according to a caveat lodged with URA Realis. The 95-unit freehold The Grange was jointly developed by MCL Land and Wing Tai Holdings and was completed in 2008.
Also completed in 2008 was the boutique luxury condo, Beaufort on Nassim, located in the exclusive Nassim area, where the Good Class Bungalows are some of the most expensive and are home to many of the who’s who in Singapore. The 30-unit freehold project was developed by Hong Kong developer HKR International, former owner of The Sentosa Resort and Spa (previously known as The Beaufort Sentosa). The luxury project saw most of the units sold in 2007 when it was first launched, at prices ranging from $2,105 psf to a high of $3,600 psf.
The all-time-high unit price of $3,600 psf was achieved for a 1,367 sq ft, two-bedroom unit that was sold for $4.92 million in October 2007. The recent seller offloaded the same unit for $4.25 million ($3,109 psf), according to a caveat lodged on Feb 16. The price is therefore 13.62% lower than the initial purchase price.
Located across the road from Beaufort on Nassim is the 100-unit Nassim Park Residences, developed jointly by UOL Group, Kheng Leong and Orix Capital. The fully sold luxury-condo project was completed in 2011, and the most recent transaction was the resale of a 3,477sq ft unit that changed hands for $13.7 million ($3,940 psf) in December.
Even at the 202-unit Four Seasons Park, the first hotel-branded luxury- condo project in Singapore located across the road from Four Seasons Hotel, a unit was recently sold below its purchase price. The 3,821 sq ft, six-bedroom unit on the 18th floor of one of the three towers changed hands for $9.5 million ($2,486 psf), according to a caveat lodged on Feb 16. The buyer is believed to be a Singaporean. The unit was last purchased for $11 million ($2,879 psf) in April 2013, reflecting a loss of 13.65% for the seller. The condo was developed by Hotel Properties Ltd and completed in 1994.
Word on the street is that the sellers of both units that changed hands recently at Four Seasons and Beaufort on Nassim were foreigners. Property agents reckon that these high-net- worth foreign individuals are “rebalancing their investment portfolios”, and therefore choosing to exit their investment holdings in Singapore to reinvest in markets elsewhere. “And some of them would rather cut their losses now and take their money out, for fear that prices would fall further as new supply enters the market,” says an agent who declined to be named.
According to a CBRE luxury residential report released on March 4, seven luxury-condo projects with a total of 467 units were completed last year. They include the 84-unit Ardmore 3, 43-unit Le Nouvel Ardmore, 156-unit Nouvel 18 and 34-unit Sculptura Ardmore in the prestigious Ardmore Park neighbourhood; the 70-unit Tomlinson Heights and 29-unit Hana in the Tomlinson/ Cuscaden Road area; and the 54-unit TwentyOne Angullia Park.
This article appeared in the City & Country of Issue 667 (Mar 09) of The Edge Singapore.