China’s property stocks are likely to be ‘range-bound’ in 2010 on concern that the government will step up measures to curb gains in real estate prices, according to BNP Paribas.

The China SE Shanghai Property Index has slumped 9.7 per cent this year, after doubling last year, as the government re-imposed a sales tax on homes sold within five years of their purchase and pledged to speed up the construction of low-cost housing.

The gauge rose 0.2 per cent last week as annual parliamentary meetings didn’t introduce any new measures to rein in property prices.

‘Some commentators are suggesting policy risks were abating,’ Frank Chen and Trevor Cheung, Hong Kong-based analysts at BNP Paribas, wrote in a report yesterday. ‘We disagree and believe policy risks will stay with the sector for most of 2010 as the government continues to keep a tight grip on property prices.’

Premier Wen Jiabao repeated a pledge in his annual report to lawmakers earlier this month to counter property speculation and ‘keep price levels stable’. Real estate prices climbed 10.7 per cent in February from a year earlier, the fastest in almost two years, according to the statistics bureau.

Brokerages including UBS, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Credit Suisse Group and BofA-Merrill Lynch Research have turned positive on China’s property developers in the past month, saying the plunge in share prices this year has made them cheap and concern over tighter credit has been overdone.

The Shanghai property index trades at 25 times reported profits, near the lowest versus the Shanghai Composite Index since June 2008, according to weekly data compiled by Bloomberg.

Valuations for Chinese property developers are ‘very low’ and demand will be bolstered by rising incomes, Winson Fong, who helps manage about US$2.5 billion at SG Asset Management HK Ltd in Hong Kong, said in a Bloomberg Television interview yesterday.

BNP reiterated its forecast for 2010 property sales volumes to fall by 10 per cent and advised investors to sell shares of Hong Kong-listed Guangzhou R&F Property Co.

Guangzhou R&F has dropped 9.5 per cent this year, while China Vanke Co, the biggest mainland-traded developer by market value, has declined 15 per cent in Shenzhen.

Source: Business Times, 16 Mar 2010

More restrained pricing in some areas due to buyers having more choice

UK home sellers raised asking prices by the smallest amount for March on record as the supply of available properties increased, Rightmove plc said.

The average house price in England and Wales climbed 0.1 per cent from February to £229,614 (S$483,222), the smallest increase for the month since data began in 2002, the owner of the UK’s biggest property website said in a statement yesterday. Prices in London dropped 2.5 per cent.

Britain’s housing market continues to be a ‘challenging’ environment, Bovis Homes Group plc, the smallest publicly traded UK homebuilder by volume, said last week. While the economy has exited recession, Bank of England officials said that they may expand their £200 billion bond purchase programme if they need to sustain the recovery.

‘In some areas, more restrained pricing is required as a direct consequence of buyers having more choice,’ Miles Shipside, commercial director of Rightmove, said in the statement. ‘The small increase in March shows how much more unpredictable the market has become. We still forecast some further rises in the first half of this year when buyers have picked over the newly marketed stock.’

The gain across the UK this month compares with the 1.3 per cent average increase for March from 2002 to 2009, Rightmove said. Asking price gains slowed from last month’s 3.2 per cent advance, the biggest since April 2007. The report shows that asking prices rose 6.1 per cent from a year earlier.

The number of properties put on the market rose by a third from a year ago, and is up 18 per cent from February, Rightmove said. The average time on the market fell to 63 days, the lowest for March on record, from 84.

The North led gains among the seven of 10 regions tracked by Rightmove, with a 6.6 per cent increase on the month. London and East Anglia fell the most, dropping 2.5 per cent each.

Kingston-upon- Thames’s 5.9 per cent drop led declines in the capital, followed by a 5.7 per cent decrease in Westminster.

‘With the backdrop of the UK housing market continuing to be challenging,’ 2009 performance ‘leaves the Group well placed to deliver profitable growth looking ahead,’ Bovis Homes said in a statement on March 8. The Longfield-based company reported annual profit of £3.49 million, compared to a £59 million loss a year earlier.

A lack of credit is limiting demand for new property and may be undermining the housing market recovery. Mortgage approvals fell to 48,198 in January, the lowest in eight months.

Bank of England policymaker Kate Barker said that UK borrowers may face higher loan costs for a while. There will be a ‘protracted period where credit is more expensive while there is pain from the public finance side’, the Western Morning News reported on March 13, citing an interview.

House prices climbed for the first time in five months in March, gaining 0.1 per cent to £217,006, according to a separate report released yesterday by website FindaProperty. com. This month’s reading is based on 237,000 transactions tracked by the company.

Policymakers kept the key interest rate at a record low of 0.5 per cent this month after the economy expanded 0.3 per cent in the last three months of 2009, ending the recession at six quarters.

Source: Business Times, 16 Mar 2010

They must change to cope with population growth and climate change or face social unrest and urban decay

Australia circa 2050, population 35 million, climate change induced rising sea levels have flooded the Gold Coast resort region, apartment blocks are now used to grow food and people commute in monorail pods above the sea.

In another city, Australians live on floating island pods with apartments both below and above sea level, the population has shifted from land to the sea because of the sky-rocketing value of disappearing arable land.

Climate change has also forced many Australians to move inland and create new cities in the outback, relying on solar power to exist in the inhospitable interior.

These are just a few urban scenarios by some of Australia’s leading architects shortlisted for ‘Ideas for Australian Cities 2050+’ to be staged at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale.

While these images may sound like science fiction, many architects and demographers say that Australian cities must radically transform to cope with the pressures of population growth and climate change or face social unrest and urban decay.

‘If we don’t get this right . . . all hell breaks loose, or our cities break down, there’s not enough water, there’s not enough power,’ said one of Australia’s leading demographers, Bernard Salt.

Australia survived the global financial crisis, due largely to China buying its resources; and while resource exports will continue to bolster its economy for decades, future prosperity may be threatened by a growing, ageing population, according to an Australian government report released in February. The report said that Australia’s population was set to rise by 60 per cent to 35 million by 2050, mainly through migration, yet cities are already groaning under the present population.

‘One of the major frontier issues for Australia over the next decade will be the future of our cities,’ said Heather Ridout, chief executive of the Australian Industry Group, which is calling for major infrastructure investment in cities. Among the beneficiaries of such development would be property firms such as Lend Lease, Stockland and Mirvac Group, building material groups Boral Ltd and CSR, Australia’s top engineering contractor Leighton Holding Ltd, and the country’s biggest private hospital operator, Ramsay Health.

But demographers warn that Australian cities need to not only expand infrastructure, but ensure that future residents have equal access to city facilities. Racial riots at Sydney’s Cronulla beach in 2005 and a series of attacks on Indian students in the past year are signs of growing social tension in Australian cities, said demographers.

‘If we have a rising population, we need to make sure that we have appropriate infrastructure, so that we don’t lose the social cohesion that we take for granted,’ said Larissa Brown from the Centre for Sustainable Leadership. ‘We need affordable access to housing, to transport, to health care.’

While Australia is double the size of Europe, three-quarters of the country is sparsely populated countryside or harsh outback, leaving the bulk of the population to inhabit a thin strip down the south-east coast. In fact, around 50 per cent of the population live in the three largest cities – Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane – on a combined land area that is about the size of Brunei or Trinidad & Tobago.

‘We’re at risk of seeing increasingly dysfunctional cities . . . we’re starting to see sort of fragmentation and breakdown of the transport systems and increasing frustration for the residents of those cities trying to get around,’ said Jago Dodson, urban researcher at Griffth University.

A State of Cities 2010 report released in March said that Australia’s major cities contribute neary 80 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), but warned that worsening urban congestion would have a serious negative impact on economic growth if not addressed.

The Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics estimates the cost of road congestion for the Australian cities was about A$9.4 billion (S$12 billion) for 2005. Left unchecked, this is projected to rise to A$20 billion by 2020.

‘Urban congestion contributes to traffic delays, increased greenhouse gas emissions, higher vehicle running costs and more accidents,’ said Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese. ‘It is a tragedy that many parents spend more time travelling to and from work, than at home with their kids. Relieve urban congestion and we improve our quality of life as well as our productivity,’ he added.

In February, a 10-year, A$50 billion transport blueprint was announced for Sydney which will see a new heavy rail network, 1,000 new buses and possibly a fast train linking Sydney with the port city of Newcastle, to its north. Sydney, Australia’s biggest city, is gridlocked daily, forcing a motorist who travels 22 km a day to spend three days stuck in traffic each year.

Private transport currently accounts for about 90 per cent of urban journeys in Australia. Transurban Group, which operates the nation’s major tollways, believes that car usage will continue to rise, despite a move to public transport.

‘Despite concern about climate change, road use in our cities is predicted to grow significantly in the next 20 to 30 years,’ said Transurban in a 2009 sustainability report. ‘New road projects will increasingly be part of integrated transport solutions for entire cities or transport corridors.’

But the company warned that future road projects will cost more to build and develop due to climate change, with Australia’s government seeking to introduce a carbon emissions trading scheme and pre-approval analysis of climate impacts of new projects.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s government plans to invest A$36 billion in transport infrastructure in the next five years. Improving efficiency in energy and transport infrastructure could increase GDP by nearly 2 per cent, or the equivalent of A$75 billion, said Australia’s Productivity Commission.

Australia has one of the world’s highest home ownership rates, but the generational dream of a suburban home and garden looks set to be shattered. Over the next few decades, more Australians will be living in high- density housing, what some demographers call the ‘Manhattanisation’ of cities.

A new Sydney urban plan released in February calls for 700,000 new dwellings by 2036, with 70 per cent of development to occur within existing suburbs and only 30 per cent in new suburbs. If Sydney does not consolidate, the city would need to expand 1.5 times in size to accommodate its growing population and would run out of available land within 30 years, said the New South Wales (NSW) state government plan.

Demographer Mr Salt questions whether Australians will give up the Neighbours dream, citing the worldwide TV hit about life in a suburban Australian street. ‘Neighbours … is absolutely integral to the Australian psyche,’ said Mr Salt, a partner at KPMG.

Whether Sydney adopts a Manhattan or low-rise European urban plan, a rising population will put more pressure on housing stock. Australia already has one of the most expensive house prices in the world, and housing affordability is falling.

The Commonwealth Bank’s CommSec forecasts that housing prices, which rose 12 per cent in 2009, will rise by 8-10 per cent in 2010 due to a rising population and a lack of stock.

‘For investors, rising rents and home prices is an attractive combination,’ said CommSec’s chief economist James Craig. Leightons forecasts annual growth in residential construction of 6 per cent till to 2014. Mirvac, one of the country’s top apartment construction firms, also forecasts growth, citing A$759 million worth of exchanged contracts, focusing on large-scale projects which are transforming old industrial sites in Sydney.

Australia has an inhospitable interior forcing more than a quarter of its 20 million people to live in the south-east corner, where the two biggest cities and jobs are located. The projected population increase will impact heavily on Australia’s fragile environment, and require urban planning to ensure that future cities are environmentally sustainable.

Australians have the biggest houses in the worlds, nicknamed McMansions, and demographers said that homes may need to be retro-fitted with water tanks and solar panels to make cities more sustainable and reduce their environmental footprint.

Between 1998 and 2004 Sydney’s environmental footprint grew from 6.67 to 7.21 ha per person, but some Australians warn that there is a limit to the country’s population carrying capacity. ‘A bigger Australia doesn’t mean deeper soils, it doesn’t mean larger river flows, it doesn’t mean more rainfall. We’re only bigger in one sense – the increase in the total number of humans crammed into the narrow coastal strip,’ said Bob Carr, former New South Wales state premier.

Source: Business Times, 16 Mar 2010

CleanTech Park will be an icon for development and application of clean technologies

IT is a big project befitting grand ambitions. Last month, JTC Corporation and the Economic Development Board (EDB) announced plans to build Singapore’s first eco-business park in the western part of the island.

The 50-hectare CleanTech Park, with one million square metres of space, could establish Singapore as a centre for developing, testing and commercialising green technology, the agencies believe.

The park will be located on a contiguous greenfield site at Nanyang Avenue, and will take some 20 years to be completed, at a cost of $52 million.

The government expects that by 2030, the park would have created 20,000 jobs and attracted some $2.5 billion worth of investments in buildings.

‘CleanTech Park will serve as an icon for the development and application of clean technologies,’ said JTC chief executive Manohar Khiatani.

Business sense

Painting the town green, not red, is making both sense and cents these days. Certainly, the desire to cut carbon emissions and combat climate change is a key motivator behind governments’ push to develop clean technology, or cleantech. Finding environmentally sustainable ways to live has taken on a new urgency as evidence of global warming mounts.

But cleantech also makes business sense. The UK government estimated in 2006 that the global market for environmental technologies will grow to around US$700 billion by this year.

A multitude of sectors can derive greater efficiencies and reduce any negative impact they have on the environment with cleantech. Today’s cleantech industry comes up with new solutions or business models to help the energy, water, transportation, agriculture and manufacturing sectors, just to name a few.

As cleantech companies grow, they may also fuel the development of supporting financial industries, such as those offering venture capital, initial public offering (IPO) or merger and acquisition services.

The amount of money involved in such financial deals can be huge. For instance, Netherlands-based sensor maker Sensata Technologies Holding managed to raise US$568.8 million from its listing on the New York Stock Exchange this month. According to research firm Cleantech Group, this is the largest cleantech IPO since April 2008.

What all this means is that countries can live well, and also earn well by paying attention to the cleantech industry. The Singapore government has identified it as a key economic cluster, which could contribute around $3.4 billion to the country’s GDP and employ 18,000 people by 2015.

Attracting companies

How successful will Singapore’s first venture in creating a park for cleantech firms be? Both JTC and EDB have expressed optimism about the project’s prospects.

‘Companies are increasingly interested in commercial and research space that is eco-friendly,’ said EDB managing director Beh Swan Gin.

JTC’s Mr Khiatani also said: ‘We’re confident at the level of interest we’ve received, so we felt that we should start this rolling.’

CleanTech Park has already secured its first anchor tenant – Nanyang Technological University (NTU). NTU will be right next to the park and will house some of its research and development activities in cleantech there. This arrangement could foster collaborations between academia and private firms.

Siting the park next to the university is significant, said co-director for NTU’s Energy Research Institute, Subodh Mhaisalkar. ‘It will help us work seamlessly with key industry partners in CleanTech Park and allow our students to gain invaluable opportunities for attachment and hands-on experience in state-of-the-art green technologies.’

EDB’s Mr Beh agreed. CleanTech Park’s tenants will ‘benefit from the close proximity to NTU, thereby promoting the cross-fertilisation of knowledge and ideas to facilitate the development and demonstration of systems-level cleantech solutions’, he said.

The agencies will have to reach out to the private sector next. They are targeting not just cleantech firms, but also eco-friendly product and service providers, and businesses which have embraced environmental sustainability as part of their corporate social responsibility.

JTC and EDB hope that by 2018, CleanTech Park would have drawn around 250 local and foreign companies – including multinational corporations and small and medium sized enterprises.

Some industry players have expressed support for the project. According to a BT report last month,the Sustainable Energy Association of Singapore’s chairman Edwin Khew said that the park would be ‘a very attractive place to generate business’. The association represents 140 companies and members are being encouraged to take out small offices in the park.

Green features

JTC and EDB will have to ‘walk the talk’ when it comes to developing CleanTech Park – as a space for companies promoting environmental sustainability, the park also has to be eco-friendly.

The agencies will be adopting a ‘minimal land-cut’ principle to conserve trees and landscape. The park itself will also be a test-bed for green ideas such as the sky trellis – there will be plant-covered trellises between buildings to make walking outside cooler.

Space at CleanTech Park will be ‘priced competitively’ even with the focus on the environment, said Mr Khiatani.

CleanTech Park will be built up in three phases. The first phase will create around 17 hectares of business park land from this year to 2018. The second and phase will take place from 2019 to 2025, and the park will be completed at end-2030.

Source: Business Times, 16 Mar 2010

CHIP Eng Seng Corporation has extended its footprint overseas with the purchase of a A$20.2 million (S$25.8 million) site in Melbourne.

The deal is considerable when it is seen against the property and construction firm’s net profit of $75.3 million for FY2009.

The land parcel is located at Mackenzie Street, in the eastern part of Melbourne’s central business district, and spans around 20,000 sq ft. Chip Eng Seng plans to build a 32-storey tower on the site, with 350 residential apartments and other amenities such as shops.

This site marks the company’s third development project in Australia. It had earlier completed a commercial building and a residential project in Adelaide.

‘With the stabilising world economy, we believe that this is an opportune time for us to expand our development property portfolio,’ said Chip Eng Seng executive chairman Lim Tiam Seng.

‘Melbourne represents a great opportunity as the city is currently experiencing a shortage in supply even as the population continues to increase.’

Chip Eng Seng does not expect the project in Melbourne to have any material impact on its net tangible assets and earnings per share for the current financial year ending Dec 31. It will be funding the site purchase using internal funds and bank borrowings.

As at end-2009, the company had cash and cash equivalents worth $76.1 million and a net debt to equity ratio of 0.15.

Mr Lim expects Chip Eng Seng’s cash position to strengthen further when its joint development projects, The Parc Condominium in the West Coast area and City Vista Residences near Cairnhill, receive their temporary occupation permits this year.

‘This puts us in an excellent position to pursue opportunities in Singapore and the region, as well as allow us to tender competitively for construction pro-jects,’ he said.

Chip Eng Seng’s most recent property launch was that of Oasis@Elias in Pasir Ris. The company has been bidding for land at state tenders in the last few months in a bid to top up its residential land bank.

The counter closed unchanged yesterday at 39 cents.

Source: Business Times, 16 Mar 2010

THE Canadian International School (CIS) here has unveiled the partner financing its new $140 million campus in Jurong West.

It is Singapore-based private education provider Knowledge Universe, which has more than 350,000 students in its institutions worldwide, including 8,500 in its 41 institutions here, which are mostly preschools.

The injection of funds will give Knowledge Universe a majority stake in CIS, the founders of which will continue to manage the school while retaining a significant equity stake, said CIS founder and managing director Thomas Tang.

The new campus can accommodate up to 3,300 students when it reaches full capacity in 10 years.

Spread over 43,000 sq m, it will have state-of-the-art classrooms, sporting complexes, outdoor play facilities, as well as a performing arts and fine arts centre, an auditorium and a media centre.

Estimated to be completed by August next year, the new campus will consolidate the school’s current Toh Tuck, Bukit Tinggi and Kampong Bahru campuses. The school’s East Coast campus in Tanjong Katong will stay put, as it was recently renovated.

The school, which is not funded by the Canadian government, has 1,900 students across its campuses now.

The new campus almost could not materialise, a victim of the global financial crisis. The school ran into difficulties raising funds, and construction stalled in October 2008.

It was supposed to have opened in February last year, and when it became clear this was not going to happen, parents were thrust into uncertainty, unsure about whether they should keep their children there.

Ms Elizabeth Duke, whose sons are in Grades 3 and 5 in the school, said: ‘I know parents who have moved their children out, which affects me because my sons lose their friends.’

CIS head Glenn Odland said the school cast around for potential partners, and picked Knowledge Universe after rigorous evaluation.

‘We decided that Knowledge Universe offered the best fit for our school and our community,’ he said.

Mr Tang said both parties have been thoughtful and prudent in considering how the partnership should be structured to ensure maximum benefits for the students.

The unveiling of Knowledge Universe as the school’s partner comes nine months after CIS said it had secured financing from a partner it did not name.

Dr Odland said: ‘As a school, we recognise that many members of our community have experienced anxiety as a result of the delays in the Jurong project, and we are extremely pleased that we can now move forward.’

Ms Duke said she hoped that parents who were uncertain would now be persuaded to keep their children in CIS.

Referring to the August 2011 opening date, she said it was just one more school year away, which ‘will be tolerable to parents, and we’ll be able to maintain our strong community’.

Source: Straits Times, 16 Mar 2010

Strong momentum continued through February and more launches are expected this month

The number of new private homes sold in January and February 2010 has already outstripped that for the whole of Q1 2009, official data shows.

Developers sold 1,196 units in February – down 19 per cent month-on- month from the 1,480 units sold in January 2010 – according to the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA). Analysts attributed the slowdown to the Chinese New Year.

But sales over the two months still work out to 2,676 units – slightly more than the 2,552 homes sold in Q1 2009 and a significant jump from the 1,841 homes sold in Q4 2009.

The number of units launched also hit 2,587 in January and February, which has also exceeded the levels seen in Q1 2009 and Q4 2009.

Analysts predict that another more than 1,000 new homes could be sold in March – which means that the take-up for Q1 2010 is likely to top 3,600 units.

‘As the strong sales momentum in January and February continues into March, new home sales in the first quarter of 2010 could reach 4,000 units. Especially with two more new launches at Sentosa Cove expected in March,’ said Li Hiaw Ho, executive director of CBRE Research.

DTZ expects the take-up in Q1 2010 to be between 3,400 and 3,800 units, while Jones Lang LaSalle’s (JLL) estimate is for 3,500 units.

Sales in March are expected to hold up in spite of the introduction of two new policies to curb speculation in the private residential market introduced by the government in late February – a seller’s stamp duty for those who buy a residential property and sell it within a year and a reduction in the loan-to-value limit on housing loans from 90 per cent to 80 per cent.

‘Interest in properties has yet to wane, as judged by strong showflat turnouts,’ observed DMG & Partners analyst Brandon Lee, who visited the showflats of Cheung Kong Holdings’ The Vision and Sing Holdings’ The Laurels over the weekend.

‘Buyers were undeterred despite the recent slew of government policies, as evidenced by healthy take-ups of 60-80 per cent and the 20-30 per cent price premiums achieved over nearby completed projects.’

Sing Holdings said yesterday that it has sold 133 of the 179 units released at the 229-unit The Laurels in the Cairnhill area as of Sunday. All four penthouses and one-bedroom units have been taken up, and the price for ‘typical units’ ranges from $2,800-$3,200 psf.

In a separate update, Cheung Kong Holdings said that 160 apartments in the 295-unit The Vision were sold by end-Sunday. Two to four-bedroom units went for around $1,000-$1,200 psf.

Encouraged by the strong take-up in the first two months of the year, developers are expected to launch more units and projects in what is left of March.

‘With the government monitoring the market closely, it would also be in the interest of developers to proceed with their launches instead of at a later date when prices may come under pressure if more market cooling measures were introduced,’ said Tay Huey Ying, Colliers’ director for research and advisory.

In particular, City Developments’ 228-unit The Residences at W Singapore and Ho Bee Investment’s 151-unit Seascape (both on Sentosa Cove) are highly anticipated.

Some developers are rolling out more units in already-launched projects.

Hong Fok Land is understood to have launched the second phase of units at the 360-unit Concourse Skyline on Beach Road. A total of 171-units (out of 200 launched) were sold as at end-February, with two units transacting during the month at a median price of $1,818. However units in the second phase, which come with a water-view, are going for more than $2,000 psf each, sources said. The developer is also absorbing the stamp duty on selected units to a bid to boost sales.

In February, there was also a preference for cheaper units. According to Colliers, only 643 properties, or 54 per cent of the total number of homes sold, went for more than $1,000 per square foot (psf) in February. This contrasts with the 1,118 units sold in the same category in January, which accounted for 76 per cent of all sales during that month.

‘The impact of the (new government) measures was probably marginal during the month given that the policies only took effect on February 20,’ said Chua Yang Liang, JLL’s head of research for South-east Asia and Singapore.

But he cautioned that the take-up rate (the number of units sold divided by the number of units launched) could be hit somewhat over the rest of 2010.

The star performer in February was MCL Land’s The Estuary, a mass-market project in Yishun which was launched after the government measures were announced. The 386 units sold (at a median price of $757 psf) from this project alone accounted for nearly one-third of the sales in February. In second place was Far East Organization’s Altez in Enggor Street with a take-up of 150 units and a median price of $1,817 psf.

But interest remained for luxury projects. Seven units above $3,000 psf were sold in February, compared to only one in January. These included four units from UOL Group’s Nassim Park Residences at a median price of $3,202 psf. Analysts noted that the URA price index is likely to register an increase in Q1 based on the higher-value projects sold in the quarter.

Source: Business Times, 16 Mar 2010

From April 1, estate agencies must have a valid Professional Indemnity (PI) insurance to renew their accreditation status with the Singapore Accredited Estate Agencies (SAEA).

The SAEA recommends a minimum limit of indemnity of S$500,000.

SAEA said the move is designed to strengthen consumer confidence in estate agents who are believed to handle eight out of 10 real estate transactions.

Having a Professional Indemnity insurance is akin to good risk management for estate agencies, said SAEA, adding that the insurance also offers consumer some protection in case of dispute.

More details are expected at a seminar co-organised by SAEA and two other insurance companies on March 25.

Source: Channel News Asia, 16 Mar 2010

SALES of private property kept sizzling over the weekend as buyers, undeterred by the rainy weather and recent government policies to cool the market, packed showflats.

Demand was strong for mass market and prime projects, with buyers especially keen on The Laurels, an upmarket 229-unit project in Cairnhill Road.

Developer Sing Holdings has sold 135 of the 179 units so far, with around 40 – comprising mostly two-, three- and four-bedders – going over the weekend and two more taken up yesterday.

More than 90 units had already been sold at private previews for business associates and former Hillcourt Apartments owners, where the development now sits.

Prices at the project ranged from $2,800 to $3,200 per sq foot (psf).

All four penthouses have also been bought, for between $8 million and $10 million each, and the 45 one-bedroom units are also gone, a DMG & Partners report said.

‘We had a good mix of buyers with strong take-up rates across the different unit sizes. Mostly two- and three-bedroom units are left but we have no plans to release the remaining 50 units yet,’ the spokesman said.
DMG & Partners property analyst Brandon Lee said turnout for The Laurels preview was healthy, with 20 to 40 people in the showflat at any one point.

Locals made up a good proportion of the buyers, although there were some Indonesians as well, the Sing Holdings spokesman said.

Mr Lee expects 30 to 50 units to be retained for future launches so as to ride on continued rising prices within the high-end segment.

The Vision at West Coast – marketed as a high-end project in a suburban location – was also popular.
As of yesterday, 160 out of the 295 units in the Cheung Kong Holdings development had been sold, including the 100 that went during the initial preview.

This is in spite of record prices – from $1,000 to $1,200 psf – for a mass market project.
The Vision, a 99-year leasehold condominium located across the road from West Coast Park, has 281 apartments and 14 strata terrace units. It is next to Blue Horizon, where units in the resale market have gone for $764 to $841 psf this year.

UOB Kay Hian analyst Vikrant Pandey said the strong demand for The Vision served to reinforce positive views about the sustainability of the property market’s recovery, with turnout strong despite Sunday’s rain.
He expects demand to remain strong for other upcoming launches.

‘We believe the turnaround in the property segment is well supported by favourable demand-supply dynamics, high liquidity and a low interest rate environment,’ Mr Pandey added.

Tiong Aik’s Coralis near Marine Parade has also seen strong sales, with more than 50 out of its 127 units taken up at its weekend preview in Raffles Hotel. Prices were between $1,350 and $1,550 psf. It is expected to be launched this weekend.

Coralis is a freehold condominium featuring one-bedders as small as 495 sq ft and penthouses of up to 3,089 sq ft.

Mr Dennis Yong, head of special projects at HSR International Realtors – a co-marketing agent of the project – said strong demand was seen mostly from local people with the ‘perspective of home ownership’. Investors made up only about 20 per cent of buyers, he said.

Mr Yong expects continued demand in the next two to four weeks as there is still genuine demand from home buyers.

But he tips prices to continue increasing, given developers’ depleting landbanks and that new site tenders are attracting high bids.

‘Developers are not in a rush to sell. They can still push up their prices to maximise their value and to increase the average price of each unit,’ he said.

‘They are not sure how high to price their units, (so) every four to five units sold, they adjust their prices again.’

City Developments has said it plans to launch the 228-unit Residences at W Singapore Sentosa Cove this month while it hopes to release a 429-unit project in Chestnut Avenue next month. A spokesman said that while it has not launched any new projects as yet, there has been buying interest.

Local developer Hiap Hoe Group will preview its 61-unit Skyline 360� at St Thomas Walk and its 48-unit Treasure on Balmoral – a luxury development costing at least $4 million per unit – at Raffles Hotel this weekend.

CB Richard Ellis executive director of residential services Joseph Tan said he has seen ‘decent sales’ even for some of the ongoing projects such as Centennia Suites in Kim Seng Road over the past weekend.

‘Sales are still okay even for the older launches…All (projects) are moving, some are faster, some are slower but even if sales are slower, it could be the marketing strategy of the developer. Prices might still go up and with a developer having a depleting landbank, it is not in its interest to sell fast,’ he said.

Source, Straits Times 16 March 2010

PROPERTY buyers showed few signs of easing off last month and snapped up 1,196 new private homes – more than industry experts had expected for a month many thought would be quieter.

The robust figures follow from a bumper January, when 1,480 private units were sold – a number that trumped the miserly 481 shifted in December, and helped prompt government measures to pre-empt a property bubble.

Sales in January and February hit 2,676 units, already well up on the 2,596 sold in the first three months of last year, with March numbers yet to come.

CBRE Research executive director Li Hiaw Ho said yesterday: ‘As the strong sales momentum in January-February continues into March, new home sales in the first quarter of 2010 could reach 4,000 units.’
Already, Cheung Kong (Holdings) at the weekend sold 160 units of The Vision in the west coast at $1,000 to $1,200 per sq ft.

Last month’s sales serve to underline that the property resurgence is more resilient than some had thought.
PropNex chief executive Mohamed Ismail said the figures were ‘impressive’ considering the Chinese New Year holiday typically marks a quieter month. February is also the shortest month, and market cooling measures took effect on the 20th of the month.

The strong performance is ‘testament to the underlying strength of demand for homes by both owner-occupiers and investors’, said Colliers International’s director for research and advisory, Ms Tay Huey Ying.
‘Purchasers appear to be largely unfazed by any short-term corrections the market may see due to potential future government measures as they are confident of their ability to ride through it to benefit from price appreciation,’ she said.

Developers launched 1,161 units last month compared with 1,426 in January, according to Urban Redevelopment Authority data out yesterday.

The bulk of last month’s sales were for projects located in prime or suburban districts.
Suburban home sales totalled 563 units, up 32 per cent from January.
One project – The Estuary in Yishun – contributed to most of that number, with 386 units selling at a median price of $757 psf.

CBRE Research said the condo’s strong showing could be because it was the only new mass-market type project launched in the Yishun area in several years.
Altez in Tanjong Pagar and Waterscape at Cavenagh also did well, selling mostly one- and two-bedroom units, it said.

Overall, sales of city-fringe and prime projects dipped last month, although seven units priced above $3,000 psf were sold, up from one in January.

Four units at Nassim Park Residences went at a median price of $3,202 psf, two at Orchard Residences sold at a median price of $3,547 psf and one at Seven Palms in Sentosa Cove attracted $3,318 psf.
‘February sales have come down a little, but it is still high. Still, further measures won’t be likely unless prices continue to rise unabated,’ said Jones Lang LaSalle’s head of research for South-east Asia, Dr Chua Yang Liang.

If that happens, a fine-tuning of the current cooling measures and possibly the introduction of a capital gains tax may be possible, he said.

While the seller’s stamp duty introduced last month could reduce new sales by another 5 per cent to 10 per cent this month, its impact is likely to be on speculators in the sub-sales and resale market, said Dr Chua.
Experts expect sales and launches to stay above the 1,000-unit mark this month.

‘Home prices are likely to register an increase based on the higher-value projects sold in the quarter,’ said CBRE’s Mr Li.

Colliers International’s Ms Tay said: ‘Buyers are likely to continue to lock in their purchases for fear of being priced out of the market if prices continue to climb.’

Source, Straits Times 16 March 2010