Parktown Residence’s sizzling sales: perks and perils of buying into large integrated

Parktown Residence’s sizzling sales: perks and perils of buying into large integrated developments

Challenges of living in large developments and with collective sales of mixed-use leasehold sites

Leslie Yee
The Business Times

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/opi...d-developments

Mar 10, 2025

From the blistering pace of sales at the launch of mega project Parktown Residence, one might think that large-scale integrated developments are especially sought after.

The Tampines project, combining 1,193 apartments with a major transport hub and retail, as well as food and beverage elements, sold 87 per cent of units (1,041 units) at an average price of S$2,360 per square foot (psf).

Singapore’s private homes are costly. Still, many people eagerly pay lofty prices for residential property because they expect capital appreciation.

New condo homes generally fetch much higher psf prices than resale ones nearby. Even so, given the strong prevailing demand at recent major launches and the big draw of its Tampines location, most had expected Parktown Residence to sell easily.

Still, sales of the 99-year leasehold condos there may have been turbo-charged by being part of an integrated development.

ERA Singapore’s chief executive officer Marcus Chu noted that Parktown Residence is one of only nine developments in Singapore which are seamlessly integrated with a transport hub and the largest among these nine projects. Chu noted that average resale prices psf of homes in completed integrated developments North Park Residences in Yishun and Sengkang Grand easily exceed the average resale prices psf of condos in their respective districts.

Units offered at Parktown Residence ranged from for a one-bedroom plus study flat at 463 square feet (sq ft) to a five-bedroom unit measuring 1,679 sq ft.

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Buyers can look forward to living in a development with a wide range of condo facilities. Importantly, the development’s residents can enjoy direct connectivity to the upcoming Tampines North MRT station and easily access communal facilities such as retail and commercial outlets, a hawker centre, a community club and a bus interchange.

Paying a premium to live in an integrated development can be easily justified. With conveniences at one’s doorstep, doing without owning a car – which is very costly nowadays – might entail minimal sacrifice. With the unpredictable and often humid weather, having sheltered access to many key facilities can be very helpful.

Add to all this an ageing population, and one can see why more people may greatly value living within easy reach of a comprehensive range of facilities.

However, while a large integrated development has strong attributes, buying a home in such a development comes with some downsides.

Problems of size

Sure, a condo development with over 1,000 homes might have much more extensive and impressive condo facilities versus one with several hundred units.

However, more residents could be competing for the use of certain common facilities. For example, there will be one tennis court in Parktown Residence.

While a larger condo project may have proportionately more function rooms than a smaller one, residents might compete fiercely to secure choice slots for the most popular among the various function rooms.

Also, one could lose a sense of exclusivity when living with possibly over 3,000 people in a 1,000-unit condo development. In 2024, the average household size among resident households was 3.09 persons, with the average household size for those living in condos and apartments at 3.14 persons.

Might fostering neighbourliness be harder in a large condo? The challenge may be exacerbated when a conveniently located development draws many transient residents who are leasing homes.

Having more people living together in one development could potentially raise the risk of conflict. Crucially, residents and retailers in a mixed-use development can at times have clashing needs.

For one, heavy vehicle traffic entering the retail component of a mixed-use development might inconvenience condo residents even if the retail and residential car parks have separate entrances.

And when F&B outlets open late, merry-making patrons could be a nuisance to residents looking to enjoy a peaceful and quiet night at home.

Indeed, more coordination is required and there is a higher chance of conflict when a condo’s Management Corporation Strata Title needs to work with peers representing the interests of other components of an integrated development.

Collective sales

Taking a long view, many owners of 99-year leasehold condo developments might eye an exit via a collective sale. This is particularly as disparate homeowners often struggle to agree on major spending to upgrade a development, say after 20 or 30 years.

Getting requisite support for a collective sale from various condo owners can be a long and arduous process. Some collective sale attempts here have seen ugly spats among neighbours.

With a collective sale of an integrated development, there are further complications. For example, are the residential and retail owners happy with the sharing of proceeds between the components?

Critically, residential and retail owners may differ on when to launch a collective sale. Homeowners might desire exiting after 20 to 30 years. However, an owner who constantly invests in upgrading a mall may not support a collective sale until the land lease runs down much more.

Building good integrated developments can be tricky. Much thought needs to be given to how different components are integrated while preserving the privacy of residential users. Constructing a building with direct connectivity to an MRT station might add further complexity.

Still, when done well, different components of an integrated development help add value to one another. Residents can enjoy the convenience of accessing a wide array of shops at the retail podium, while retailers will be happy to have a ready catchment of customers living literally at their door-step.

Leading developers here can score big by building integrated developments with good transport connectivity that have a condo component.

Competition for integrated development sites may be limited to a smaller number of large property players, given the greater complexity and often larger capital sums involved in building such developments. Parktown Residence’s joint developers are UOL Group, Singapore Land Group and CapitaLand Development.

Meanwhile, buyers, who are spoilt for choice, place a premium on homes in integrated developments.

Ultimately, an integrated project with a housing component can offer a developer trading profit from selling the homes as well as recurring income from leasing out the retail spaces.

Homebuyers would do well to carefully weigh the perks of living in an integrated development against the downsides of owning a home in such developments.