Katong Plaza, Fortune Park extend tender close

Fri, Jul 27, 2018


KATONG Plaza and Fortune Park are the latest collective sale hopefuls to extend their tender closing dates to Sept 11 and Sept 14, respectively, in light of property cooling measures. Huttons Asia, which acts as the property consultant for both freehold projects, announced the extensions on Thursday.

Huttons Asia said that the decision was made in consultation with each collective sale committee. The cooling measures which kicked in on July 6 include higher additional buyer's stamp duty (ABSD) rates and tighter loan-to-value limits.

Said Huttons Asia's deputy head of investment sales Angela Lim: "The commercial sector now looks relatively more appealing to developers and investors since it is unaffected by the new ABSD cooling measures, which affects mainly residential properties. Furthermore, foreigners and overseas investors would not be subject to ABSD on commercial properties, and the loan-to-value limits also remain unchanged."

Katong Plaza, zoned as a mixed-use site for commercial and residential use under the Urban Redevelopment Authority's Master Plan, has seen close to 90 per cent of owners agreeing to the collective sale, with an asking price of S$188 million or S$1,969 psf ppr (per square foot per plot ratio). It was launched for collective sale on June 7.

Said Ms Lim: "A mixed-use project like Katong Plaza allows developers to diversify their risk - the developer could choose to retain a portion of the commercial space for an anchor tenant, while selling the remaining strata commercial units to retail investors. There is also very low risk for the residential portion of the new development, as it can yield approximately 80 units based on an average unit size of 70 square metres."

She added that developers had given feedback that they wanted more time to study their bids before acquiring more land, so as to factor in the new cooling measures as well as new development charge rates to be announced on Sept 1.

Located in Kovan, the residential freehold Fortune Park can yield about 100 to 120 units.

Launched on July 12 with a S$126 million asking price, which translates to a land rate of S$1,337 psf ppr, the tender was originally meant to close on Aug 17.