Issue 385

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 CONTENTS FROM THE

p2 Will the Cooling New Home Sales Market

EDITOR
Welcome to the 385th edition of the
Singapore Property Weekly.
Be Frozen 2?
Hope you like it!
p9 Resale Property Transactions
Mr. Propwise
(January 14 – January 21)

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 SINGAPORE PROPERTY WEEKLY Issue 385

Will the Cooling New Home Sales Market Be Frozen 2?

By Property Soul (guest contributor) take up close to 20,000 unsold units and
another 32,000 new units in the supply
pipeline?

Powerful Elsa versus powerless Anna

Walt Disney‟s Frozen II just grossed $1 billion

in box office a week before Christmas 2019.
While kids are thrilled by Frozen, we adults
are chilled by the word frozen, especially
when referring to frozen assets, frozen
accounts or frozen markets.

[Editor’s note: This article has been edited to
make it more compact. You can read the
original here.]
Where can we find enough homebuyers to
For those of you who haven‟t watched Frozen
or Frozen II, let my favorite Frozen character
Olaf tell you the story:“It began with two
sisters. One born with magical powers, and
one born powerless …”

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 SINGAPORE PROPERTY WEEKLY Issue 385
In Frozen, Elsa is born with magical powers,
while Anna is a powerless ordinary girl. In
properties, the government is superhuman
Elsa with godlike power, while developers are
ordinary human Anna with no power.
In early December 2019 at a gala dinner, the
Redas president admitted that developers
were concerned over the challenging market
situation of high supply and subdued
demand. They wanted to be more proactive in
facilitating dialogue with the government.
Redas will form a committee to raise
concerns with government agencies. (The
Straits Times, Dec 3)
At the same dinner, Second Minister for
National Development Desmond Lee
reinforced that continued government
intervention is needed to maintain the
market‟s stability to protect homebuyers and
home owners.
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The government has implemented nine
rounds of property cooling measures from
September 2009 to July 2018. Each round of
new curbs was made effective the next day.
No advance dialogue with developers was
necessary.
The next day after the Redas president
voiced his concern over supply glut, the URA
announced three confirmed sites and eight
reserve sites for 1H2020 under the
Government Land Sales programme, with the
potential to yield up to 6,490 private
residential units.
Anna: Okay, I don’t understand. You’ve been
hearing a voice, and you didn’t think to tell
me?
Elsa: I didn’t want to worry you.
Anna: We made a promise not to shut each
other out. Just tell me what’s going on.
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 SINGAPORE PROPERTY WEEKLY Issue 385

Elsa: I woke the magical spirits of the CDL believed that, in order to save the
Enchanted Forest. developers, the ABSD timeline must be
extended. However, the government is
Trying to thaw the frozen cooling
unlikely to answer to CDL‟s request, for four
measures
obvious reasons:
The following week the CEO of City
1) If developers cannot clear all unsold units
Developments Limited (CDL) urged the
five years after acquiring the site, they are
government to lengthen the ABSD deadline
required to pay 25 percent ABSD. And CDL‟s
from five to seven or even ten years, citing
chief just reminded IRAS that they are
the reason of worsening supply glut in the
actually paying a total of 31.25 percent with
private homes market. (The Straits Times,
compound interest of 5 percent per annum for
Dec 11)
five years. Why would the government extend
Anna: I know how to free the forest. I know the timeline?
what we have to do to set things right. We
2) When foreign or listed developers are
have to break the dam.
unable to dispose all the units two years after
Olaf: But Arendelle will be flooded.
completion of their new projects, they must
Anna: That’s why everyone was forced out.
pay Qualifying Certificate extension charges.
To protect them from what has to be done.
Computed by the number of unsold units, it is
The dam must fall. It’s the only way to break
8 percent of the purchase price of the land for
the mist and free the forest.
first year extension,
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 SINGAPORE PROPERTY WEEKLY Issue 385

16 percent for the second year of extension, the developers are taken care of. Why act as
and 24 percent for the third and subsequent Santa Claus to fulfill a developer‟s Christmas
years. Why would the government bother wish?
about 20,000 unsold units and 32,000 new
Developers left to face the music
units in the pipeline?
Developers are blaming the government for
3) Singapore‟s property cooling measures are
the harsh terms of the cooling measures. It
regarded as effective compared with other
looks like the ball is in the government‟s
countries. The government aims to maintain a
court.
stable and sustainable private property
market. Besides, the next election is just But weren‟t these taxes already there when
around the corner. Why the hassle of flipping developers were aggressively bidding
an effective cooling measure to upset voters? government land plots and acquiring en bloc
sites in 2017 and 2018? Hadn‟t they run their
4) The government‟s responsibilities are the
numbers in-house to check the profit margins
sale of land sites, control of developer acts,
before submitting their bids? Weren‟t they
and release of regulations to contain an
aware of the new sites bought by other
overheated market. It is not their job to
developers and the number of new units that
ensure the profitability of developers. The
are coming up in the next few years? Didn‟t
government‟s main concern is whether
they know the number of homebuyers out
homebuyers and local banks are over-
there and see that it would take years to clear
leveraged, but not whether the interests of
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 SINGAPORE PROPERTY WEEKLY Issue 385
the stock?
Anna: Wait, what? Crazy? You didn’t say I
was crazy. You think I’m crazy?
Kristoff: No. I did. You were. Not crazy.
Clearly. Just naïve.
To be fair, the remissible ABSD was set at 15
percent of the land‟s purchase price before
July 5 last year. An additional 10 percent was
slapped by MAS on the developers after the
new curbs. And this was done after the
government sold all the GLS sites at record
high prices to local and overseas developers
who were busy competing with each other
fiercely to build their land bank.
Elsa: What were you doing? You could have
been killed! You can’t just follow me into fire.
Anna: You don’t want me to follow you into
fire, then don’t run into fire!
Elsa: Don’t you know there’s part of me that
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wants to go into the unknown?
In November 2019, MAS in its financial
stability review warned that a potential
oversupply of unsold units could put pressure
on the private residential property market. It
could bring down the prices if the demand
does not rise correspondingly.(The Straits
Times, Nov 29)
The peak of new projects facing their 5-year
ABSD deadline will come in 2022 and 2023.
But some developers are already giving
discounts. Four months before its ABSD
deadline, eCO at Tanah Merah sold its
townhouses at $829 psf – a generous 36
percent discount from $1,302 psf a year ago.
Besides offering attractive discounts,
developers can clear unsold units in bulk. In
December 2019, thirteen semi-detached
houses at Eleven@Holland were marketing at
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 SINGAPORE PROPERTY WEEKLY Issue 385
a guide price of $38 million or $2.9 million per
house. It‟s a good deal compared with $3.7 to
$4.4 million for houses sold in the same
project between 2011 and 2013. After
completion in 2014, seven houses in the
project were sold at $17.5 million or $2.5
million each in March 2017.
Mattias: That was magic. Did you see that?
Yelena: Of course. I saw it.
Kristoff: They’ve been trapped in here this
whole time?
Anna: Yeah.
Now what?
It is ironic to read the responses of property
agencies in the article “ABSD „extension‟ may
ease property glut but experts flag limp
demand” (The Straits Times, Dec 12). Now
they talked about problems of “flagging
demand”, “affordability”, “supply-demand
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mismatch” and “developers are definitely
under pressure”.
Remember right after the new curbs imposed
last July, they were all saying that the number
of 50,000 unsold units is “not a cause for
alarm – as long as developers space out their
launches before their five-year deadline”. A
spokeswoman from JLL said then: “We
believe a lot of our developers have deep
pockets … and there is liquidity and pent-up
demand in the market.”(Channel NewsAsia,
July 21)
Seventeen months later, did they wake up
one fine day and realize that there is
oversupply in the new condo market? Did
they come to terms with the fact that there
are simply not enough homebuyers, HDB
upgraders and foreigners to consume all the
new units?
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 SINGAPORE PROPERTY WEEKLY Issue 385

Did they finally admit that new projects are

not moving despite higher commissions
offered by developers?

Do developers have strong magical powers

like Elsa? How can they weather the
snowstorm? Will the new sales market be
frozen in the near future? When will it be
unfrozen? We shall see.

Olaf: And Anna freezes to death, forever.

Then she unfreezes. And then Elsa woke up
the magical spirits, and we were forced out of
our kingdom, and now our only hope is to find
the truth about the past, but we don’t have a
clue how to do that.

By guest contributor Property Soul, a

successful property investor, blogger, and
author of the No B.S. Guide to Property
Investment.

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 SINGAPORE PROPERTY WEEKLY Issue 385

Non-Landed Residential Resale Property Transactions for the Week of Jan 14 – Jan 21

Postal Area Transacted Price Postal Area Transacted Price

Project Name Tenure Project Name Tenure
District (sqft) Price ($) ($ psf) District (sqft) Price ($) ($ psf)
1 ROBINSON SUITES 495 1,238,000 2,500 FH 9 WATERFORD RESIDENCE 980 1,680,000 1,715 999
1 MARINA ONE RESIDENCES 1,163 2,787,751 2,398 99 9 MACKENZIE REGENCY 1,087 1,438,000 1,323 FH
1 MARINA ONE RESIDENCES 753 1,693,969 2,248 99 9 SOPHIA RESIDENCE 2,680 3,480,000 1,298 FH
1 MARINA ONE RESIDENCES 753 1,666,121 2,211 99 9 JIA 2,680 2,150,000 802 FH
1 ONE SHENTON 527 1,030,000 1,953 99 10 BISHOPSGATE RESIDENCES 3,068 11,200,000 3,651 FH
1 PEOPLE'S PARK COMPLEX 1,119 945,000 844 99 10 J C DRAYCOTT 1,033 2,080,000 2,013 FH
2 WALLICH RESIDENCE 3,509 17,500,000 4,987 99 10 POLLEN & BLEU 1,141 2,200,000 1,928 99
2 WALLICH RESIDENCE 1,098 3,420,000 3,115 99 10 MARTINA MANSIONS 1,259 2,300,000 1,826 FH
3 THE CREST 1,195 2,450,000 2,051 99 10 SPRING GROVE 1,012 1,600,000 1,581 99
4 MARINA COLLECTION 3,412 6,500,000 1,905 99 10 CHARMING GARDEN 1,819 2,800,000 1,539 999
4 REFLECTIONS AT KEPPEL BAY 1,830 3,396,250 1,856 99 10 THE ASTON 657 1,000,000 1,523 FH
4 REFLECTIONS AT KEPPEL BAY 1,776 2,920,300 1,644 99 10 GLENTREES 3,154 3,500,000 1,110 999
4 REFLECTIONS AT KEPPEL BAY 1,690 2,730,000 1,615 99 11 SOLEIL @ SINARAN 1,098 2,000,000 1,822 99
4 REFLECTIONS AT KEPPEL BAY 1,173 1,783,320 1,520 99 11 SOLEIL @ SINARAN 958 1,600,000 1,670 99
5 WEST BAY CONDOMINIUM 893 768,000 860 99 11 GILSTEAD COURT 1,464 2,327,000 1,590 FH
7 SOUTH BEACH RESIDENCES 1,227 3,967,920 3,234 99 12 EIGHT RIVERSUITES 980 1,400,000 1,429 99
8 CITY SQUARE RESIDENCES 1,216 1,935,000 1,591 FH 13 PARC MONDRIAN 1,173 1,618,000 1,379 FH
8 KENG LEE COURT 1,055 1,180,000 1,119 FH 14 THE TRUMPS 947 1,235,000 1,304 99
9 8 SAINT THOMAS 2,422 9,000,000 3,716 FH 14 ASTON MANSIONS 1,012 957,000 946 99
9 8 SAINT THOMAS 872 2,803,000 3,215 FH 14 ASTON MANSIONS 1,227 1,085,000 884 99
9 8 SAINT THOMAS 872 2,748,000 3,152 FH 15 THE VIEW @ MEYER 667 1,208,000 1,810 FH
9 THE LAURELS 549 1,350,000 2,459 FH 15 SEAVIEW POINT 1,389 2,108,888 1,519 FH
9 URBAN RESORT CONDOMINIUM 2,551 6,050,000 2,372 FH 15 KING'S MANSION 1,604 2,200,000 1,372 FH
9 ESPADA 560 1,190,000 2,126 FH 15 COSTA RHU 1,647 2,200,000 1,336 99

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 SINGAPORE PROPERTY WEEKLY Issue 385

Postal Area Transacted Price Postal Area Transacted Price

Project Name Tenure Project Name Tenure
District (sqft) Price ($) ($ psf) District (sqft) Price ($) ($ psf)
15 WATER PLACE 1,356 1,660,000 1,224 99 21 SYMPHONY HEIGHTS 926 1,290,000 1,394 FH
15 N.A. 1,076 918,000 853 9999 23 THE LINEAR 1,884 1,930,000 1,025 999
16 WATERFRONT ISLE 1,378 1,750,000 1,270 99 23 YEWTEE RESIDENCES 1,582 1,055,000 667 99
16 COSTA DEL SOL 1,475 1,760,000 1,193 99 27 EIGHT COURTYARDS 1,572 1,530,000 974 99
16 OPTIMA @ TANAH MERAH 1,195 1,370,000 1,147 99 27 NORTHWOOD 1,604 1,398,000 872 FH
16 THE BAYSHORE 1,184 1,120,000 946 99 27 YISHUN EMERALD 1,324 1,023,088 773 99
17 FERRARIA PARK CONDOMINIUM 1,023 922,000 902 FH 28 RIVERBANK @ FERNVALE 1,044 1,140,000 1,092 99
17 ESTELLA GARDENS 1,593 1,380,000 866 FH
17 HEDGES PARK CONDOMINIUM 1,798 1,350,000 751 99
NOTE: This data only covers non-landed residential resale property
18 Q BAY RESIDENCES 1,119 1,250,000 1,117 99
transactions with caveats lodged with the Singapore Land Authority.
18 D'NEST 753 828,000 1,099 99
Typically, caveats are lodged at least 2-3 weeks after a purchaser
18 DOUBLE BAY RESIDENCES 1,367 1,495,000 1,094 99
signs an OTP, hence the lagged nature of the data.
18 WATERVIEW 786 820,000 1,044 99
18 STRATUM 958 862,000 900 99
18 OASIS @ ELIAS 980 780,000 796 99
18 CHANGI RISE CONDOMINIUM 1,130 825,000 730 99
18 ELIAS GREEN 1,518 1,080,000 712 99
18 MELVILLE PARK 1,561 1,112,000 712 99
19 WATERTOWN 1,130 1,663,000 1,471 99
19 MIDTOWN RESIDENCES 646 855,000 1,324 99
19 STADIA 861 1,000,000 1,161 FH
19 RESIDENCES BOTANIQUE 1,485 1,650,000 1,111 FH
19 BOATHOUSE RESIDENCES 710 760,000 1,070 99
19 THE MINTON 1,658 1,750,000 1,056 99
19 CENTRAL VIEW 1,216 900,000 740 99
19 RIVERVALE CREST 1,206 740,000 614 99
20 GRANDEUR 8 1,119 1,080,000 965 99

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