GCB site goes at 1996 peak
16,920 sq ft plot at Bishopsgate sold for $9.8 million or $579 psf
A GOOD Class Bungalow (GCB) site in Bishopsgate has been sold at a price approaching the 1996 peak.
Data from the Singapore Institute of Surveyors and Valuers’ REALink system shows the 16,920 sq ft plot was transacted at $9.8 million, or $579 psf.
This is the highest price for GCB land since the 1990s property bubble burst. In 1996, the asking price for GCB land in Bishopsgate was $650 psf.
It is understood that the buyer this time around is a Singaporean.
Savills Prestige Homes brokered the sale. Director Steven Ming would not disclose the buyer’s identity but said Savills has done five deals in Bishopsgate.
The latest transaction involved part of a sprawling site bought by BS Capital from HSBC for $69.8 million in 2003. BS Capital carved out 16 freehold parcels from the 276,112 sq ft site.
Prices in the area have been edging up since. In 2003, Bishopsgate GCB land was going for about $370 psf. The following year, it was $425 psf. And last year, it was around $465 psf.
The latest price of $579 psf is the biggest annual jump so far - about 20 per cent.
Property players believe prices in top GCB areas could hit $600 psf this year.
Douglas Wong, associate director of Regal Homes (residential) Knight Frank, says his firm is marketing several GCB plots in Jervois Hill - next to Bishopsgate - and the asking price for the prime plot is $600 psf.
‘I think it is possible that we will get an offer at this price this year,’ he said.
The Jervois Hill land is owned by the Hong Leong Group.
Mr Wong said 11 plots are available but not all will fetch the same high price. Site conditions - view, street frontage, configuration - will affect prices significantly.
For instance, Regal Homes sold a site with a long driveway and reduced street frontage for $415 psf in December 2005.
According to Mr Wong, the cost of building a luxury home could be around $300 psf, adding up to $2.25 million for a house of 7,500 sq ft.
There are no official figures on the number of foreigners and permanent residents who have bought into GCBs, but Mr Wong reckoned they may have accounted 15 of the 100 or so GCBs sold last year.
At Sentosa Cove, where a 99-year leasehold bungalow plot sold recently for a record $500 psf, the number of foreigners and permanent residents buying is much higher, at 60 per cent of the 193 plots sold there.
Chew May Yenk, director (valuation and advisory services consultancy) at Cushman and Wakefield, felt that the high-end market could be ‘heating-up’ too quickly with the help of foreigners, and that this could spill over to mass-market prices - putting homes in that segment out of people’s reach.
‘Traditionally, the property market moves from bottom-up. Now we are seeing a top-down phenomenon. The hope is that there will be a trickle-down effect,’ she said.
$700 million of GCBs were transacted in 2005 - surpassing the previous peak of $600 million in 1999 and suggesting that prices are likely to keep climbing.
Source : Business Times - 28 Feb 2006
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