Teo Hock Seng's bungalow on Old Holland Road is up for auction, with an opening price

Teo Hock Seng's bungalow on Old Holland Road is up for auction, with an opening price of S$36 million.

The Komoco executive chairman's property is valued at approximately S$1,555 per square foot on 23,148 square feet of land.

April 18, 2025

CONDOsingapore.com

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The freehold Good Class Bungalow (GCB) on Old Holland Road, owned by Teo Hock Seng, executive chairman of the automotive group Komoco Holdings, is up for auction for at least S$36 million.

According to marketing agent Singapore Realtors Inc. (SRI), this price tag corresponds to a land rate of about S$1,555 per square foot (psf) on the 23,148 square foot (sq ft) of land. According to caveats data, the median unit price of landed properties in the region so far this year is S$2,400 per square foot.

The site features a two-story bungalow with six en suite bedrooms, a swimming pool, an outdoor patio and pavillion, and a car porch that can hold ten cars. It is situated in the Brizay Park GCB Area of District 10.

According to data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority, Teo and his spouse, Chua Hwee Meng, paid S$11.58 million, or S$500 per square foot, for the freehold GCB in May 2007. According to reports, Robert Heng, the founder of Orchard Credit Group, an auto finance dealer, and his wife Ruby were the previous owners. In 1994, the Hengs constructed the 12,000-square-foot GCB.

Teo has long been a friend of real estate magnate Ong Beng Seng, who owns Singapore GP, the organisation that organises the Formula 1 night race in the Republic, and Komoco.

Since Komoco was established in 1986 as a Hyundai authorised dealer in Singapore, Teo has served as its leader. He is a well-known advocate for local football, serving as chairman of the Tampines Rovers Football Club from 2000 to 2015 and serving as vice-president of the Football Association of Singapore.

He refused to discuss the reasons behind the sale.

With marketing agency Brilliance Capital, he had previously listed the GCB for S$66.7 million in March 2024. This translated into a land rate of about S$2,880 per square foot.

According to Mok Sze Sze, managing partner at SRI Auction, the property will be up for auction this time as an owner sale.

When a property is put up for auction, prices are more competitive, and it's the "best way to see where the market price is" with a faster turnaround, she said.

Auctions, in contrast to conventional real estate purchases, have a set time frame and don't require a purchase option. Buyers may choose to go straight to a sale and purchase agreement instead.

According to Mok, the GCB is valued at S$46 million, or S$2,000 per square foot, even though no official valuation has been completed.

More auctions

Even though more Singaporean properties are being auctioned, success rates are still low, according to a market report by real estate firm Knight Frank.

Including repeat listings but excluding properties sold out of auction, there were 127 auction listings overall in the fourth quarter of 2024. Compared to the prior quarter, this was up 47.7%.

Twenty of the Q4 auction listings were owner listings of residential properties, which is slightly less than the twenty-four listed in Q3 and includes three landed properties and seventeen non-landed homes.

There were 418 auction listings for the entire year 2024, a 16.8% increase from the previous year. This increase was mostly caused by a more than 60% increase in mortgagee sale listings.

However, Knight Frank pointed out that owner sales still made up the majority of auction listings, a pattern that started in 2021 and is probably going to continue this year.

In 2024, there were 234 owner sale listings, which accounted for over half of all auction listings that year and were comparable to the 238 listings in 2023.

According to the consultancy, "many properties are expected to be transacted outside of auction, even though properties listed by owners knocked down at auction are typically few and far between."

The gross sales value dropped 17.5% year over year to S$28.7 million, with only 15 properties sold compared to 24 in 2023, despite an overall increase in auction listings last year.

In comparison to the average success rate of 5.1% over the previous ten years, this amounted to a success rate of 3.6% for the entire year 2024.

"Sellers, including creditors, anticipate receiving market value for their properties... Knight Frank clarified, "At the same time, buyers who are looking through the auction listings anticipate a discount."

Its head of auction and sales, Sharon Lee, stated that rather than during the auction, price adjustments to match offers made in private treaties are frequently used to close this "bid-ask gap."

Two GCBs were put up for owner sales in 2024, but no successful bids were received.

One was a King Albert Park GCB on a 16,250 square foot site that had an opening price of S$26.8 million, or S$1,649 per square foot.

The other, on a 15,171 square foot plot of land at Jervois Road in the Tanglin neighbourhood, had an opening price of S$68 million, or S$4,482 per square foot.

Teo's bungalow will be up for auction at SRI's Great World City office on April 23 at 2:00 PM.