Aerial view of the sale site at Dairy Farm Road. (Photo: URA)
Three residential sites that could yield a total of 1,880 housing units were released for sale by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) and Housing and Development Board (HDB) on Thursday (31 May) under the Government Land Sales (GLS) Programme for the first half of 2018.
Among them is a confirmed list site at Dairy Farm Road in District 23 intended for private housing with first storey commercial premises.
More: URA Awards Tenders For Three GLS Sites
Spanning 211,483.93 sq ft, the 99-year leasehold site has a gross floor area (GFA) of 444,118.94 sq ft. The tender exercise for the land parcel, which comes with a height restriction of up to six storeys, will close on 4 September.
“This is the first GLS site released for sale in the Dairy Farm area since the site of The Skywoods, which was tendered at $616 psf per plot ratio (psf ppr) in September 2012,” said Colliers International’s research head Tricia Song.
She expects to see healthy interest for the site, where 5381.96 sq ft of the GFA has been set aside for a childcare centre. Commercial use has also been capped at 43,055.64 sq ft, consisting of a supermarket, shops and eateries and a food court.
Given that units at the nearby Tree House project, Foresque Residences, Eco Sanctuary and The Skywoods are presently selling from $1,000 psf to 1,300 psf, Colliers expects the site to attract a top bid of $390 million to $420 million ($880 to $950 psf ppr).
Property agency Huttons Asia thinks the site could draw up to 10 bidders, with the highest bid ranging from $900 to $1,000 psf ppr due to the plot’s good locational attributes. For instance, it is a short walk from the Hillview station and the adjacent German European School Singapore campus, which is expected to see the enrolment of up to 2,000 students when it begins operations by August.
There is also a lack of new residential projects in the area, but Huttons noted that the nearby Dairy Farm Estate is in the process of getting 80 percent approval for a proposed en bloc sale with an asking price of more than $1.68 billion.
Meanwhile, two reserve list sites have been made available for application – a private residential plot along Sims Drive and a land parcel at Tampines Avenue 10 zoned for an executive condominium (EC) project. A reserve list site will only be triggered for sale if a bidder commits to pay an acceptable amount to the government.
The 174,647.68 sq ft site at Sims Drive has a GFA of 523,944.1 sq ft, while the 268,021.37 sq ft EC plot in Tampines has a gross plot ratio 2.8.
Song believes the Tampines site will likely be triggered for sale sooner in light of the diminishing supply of unsold ECs in the market.
“Should it be put up for sale, we believe there will be stiff competition for it and could potentially fetch $360 million ($480 psf ppr). This would be lower than the record psf price of $583 psf ppr for the Sumang Walk EC recently, but will still be the second highest for an EC site,” she said.
Huttons is more upbeat on the EC site seeing a top bid of $600 psf ppr. For the Sims Drive plot, the property firm thinks the highest bid could reach $1,200 psf ppr, whereas Colliers reckons a lower figure of $1,100 psf ppr.
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Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this or other stories, email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
