Located along Farrer Road in District 10, the freehold condo is close to Dempsey Hill and Holland Village.(Photo: ET&Co)
Despite failing to entice any buyers during its first en bloc attempt in June 2018, owners of Spanish Village have relaunched their property for collective sale at the same indicative price of $882 million, reported the New Paper.
Located along Farrer Road in District 10, the freehold condominium stands on a massive 331,457 sq ft site that is close to Empress Road Market and Food Centre. Aside from being near to Dempsey Hill, Holland Village and Chip Bee Gardens, it is also close to Nanyang Primary School.
More: Developers’ En Bloc Appetite Diminishing: RHB
According to marketing agent Edmund Tie & Co’s senior director of investment advisory Tan Chun Ming, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) has given in-principle approval to redevelop the 226-unit condo into a residential project yielding 703 homes.
The move follows the introduction of new property curbs on 6 July and the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s (URA) announcement on Wednesday (17 Oct) to raise the average unit size and lower the maximum number of houses at new non-landed projects outside Singapore’s Central region.
The higher average unit size of 85 sq m, up from 70 sq m currently, will take effect for development applications submitted from 17 January 2019. A higher average unit size of 100 sq m will also apply to nine areas.
Hence, the buyer of Spanish Village could avoid the new rules, which aims to “safeguard the liveability” of residential estates by stemming the reduction in unit sizes.
The second attempt also comes after en bloc sales of residential developments fell sharply by 90.71 percent to $353 million in the third quarter compared to $3.8 billion in the preceding quarter.
Colliers International revealed that there has been 54 en bloc attempts so far this year that have lapsed and failed to attract buyers, including seven with commercial components.
For instance, the Straits Times reported that the en bloc tender for the freehold Windy Heights condo in Kembangan ended on 10 October without any willing buyer.
The tender exercise for Spanish Village will close on 20 November.
More: Understanding The En Bloc Process (August 2018)
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this or other stories, email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
