http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/spec...-sale-20130912
Published September 12, 2013
Guillemard condo lowers its price for en bloc sale
Owners now seeking 'in excess of $96m', down from $105m- $110m in April
By Felda Chay [email protected]
VERSAILLES, a 55-unit freehold condominium along Guillemard Road, has been relaunched for a collective sale by tender - with a lower price tag than before.
The owners of the four-storey, District 15 development are now asking for offers "in excess of $96 million", down from the previous $105 to $110 million asked for in April, when the property was first put up for sale.
Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), the sole marketing agent, said the lower asking price was arrived at in response to offers received for the site, which were below the owners' initial reserve price. The collective sale committee then sought a fresh mandate to reduce the reserve price of the property.
The new asking price translates into a land cost of about $1,007 per square foot per plot ratio (psf ppr), including an estimated development charge (DC) of $16.2 million. The previous asking price would have cost developers between $1,088 and $1,133 psf ppr.
The site is unaffected by the recent revision of DC rates, said JLL.
Versailles, built in the early 1990s, sits on a 53,073-square-foot plot, with a gross plot ratio of 2.1.
Yong Choon Fah, national director of investments at JLL, said: "We believe developers would be motivated to bid competitively as they know the sellers are pragmatic and willing to re-align their expectations to market conditions.
"This site should be attractive to many medium-sized developers who will find the below-$100 million quantum manageable, unlike sites offered in the Government Land Sales (GLS) programme. In the last 12 months, most successful GLS sites were above $200 million."
She added that the government's announcement of the relocation of Paya Lebar Airbase to Changi, which will free up some 800 ha of land for redevelopment in east and northeast Singapore, was "likely to have a positive spill-over effect to the locality".
The tender for Versailles closes at 2.30pm on Oct 3.
Savills Singapore research head Alan Cheong said recent developments in the en bloc market, such as the blocking of the Thomson View sale by the High Court, are unlikely to affect smaller sales such as Versailles.
"Thomson View has many owners and it is a large project, so you need the consent of a large number of people for the sale to go through. For a sale like Versailles, where there are just 55 owners, it should be okay," he said.
Thomson View had 255 units ranging from apartments to townhouses and shop units.
"Versailles could see keen interest from boutique developers who have used up their land bank," added Mr Cheong.
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