A cluster of three bungalows sits at the top of Claymore Road, just off Orchard Road. They are 9, 11 and 15 Claymore Road  — the last remaining bungalows in the prime residential enclave of Claymore, Ardmore Park and Draycott. Around them are high-rise, luxury condo towers such as the 85-unit Tate Residences, 34-unit Sculptura Ardmore and the 146-unit The Claymore.

One of the three bungalows, namely 11 Claymore Road, is on the market for sale, with Savills Singapore as the exclusive marketing agent. The bungalow, built in the 1940s, has a gross floor area of 4,796 sq ft and sits on a freehold site of 17,974 sq ft.

According to a property title search, the property is owned by a private company, Kok Kim Chuan. The company belongs to the Kok family, who used to be involved in trading and finance.

Read also: Project Spotlight: 87% of sellers lost money in this D9 freehold condo

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Initially the family home, the property has been tenanted to Pat’s Schoolhouse (recently rebranded The Schoolhouse by Busy Bees) for the past 24 years. Hence, the property will be sold with the existing tenancy.

Under the URA Master Plan, the site is zoned for residential use with a plot ratio of 2.8 and a maximum height of 36 storeys. If the site is redeveloped into a high-rise condo, a land betterment charge of $57.889 million would be payable on top of the asking price of $95 million. After factoring in the land betterment charge, the land rate will be $2,839 psf per plot ratio (ppr).

‘Revitalisation of Orchard Road’

The site at 11 Claymore Road could attract developers who want a foothold in the prestigious District 9 neighbourhood. “With the revitalisation of this corner of Orchard Road — the redevelopment of Tanglin Shopping Centre, Ming Arcade, Hotel Properties Ltd’s HPL House, Forum The Shopping Mall and Voco Orchard Singapore, there’s a buzz in the area,” says Jeremy Lake, managing director of investment sales and capital markets, Savills.

For instance, in 2016, three prime freehold residential sites off Orchard Road were put on the market and snapped up by local developers: the site at 120 Grange Road went to Roxy-Pacific Holdings for $48.5 million; the site at 8 Hullet was sold to a consortium led by Patrick Kho of Lian Huat Group for $38.2 million; and the site at 3 Cuscaden Walk, which was the largest at 21,560 sq ft, was sold to SL Capital, a consortium led by Sustained Land, for $103.8 million.

Lake brokered the sale of 3 Cuscaden Walk, just off Orchard Boulevard in prime District 10. SL Capital redeveloped the site into a 23-storey tower with 96 luxury units, a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments measuring between 420 and 1,281 sq ft. The property is entirely sold and was completed in 2022.

When 3 Cuscaden Walk was launched in November 2018, the average price of units sold was $3,596 psf. Eight units were sold at prices above $4,000 psf, with the highest price of $4,241 psf for a 657 sq ft, two-bedroom unit on the 19th floor that fetched $2.784 million in February 2022. The latest transaction was the sub-sale of a 452 sq ft one-bedder on the eighth floor that fetched $1.8 million ($3,982 psf) in February this year.

Read also: Four-bedder at Ardmore Park sold for $2.65 mil profit

Foreign developers 

Besides local developers, Savills’ Lake reckons the site could attract foreign developers too. “We could see someone new to the market in Singapore,” he says.

For example, Hong Kong-listed Shun Tak Holdings purchased the former Park House en bloc for $375.5 million in June 2018. At $2,910 psf ppr, it still holds the record for an en bloc site today. Lake brokered the sale.

The former Park House has since been redeveloped into the upcoming freehold, 54-unit luxury condo Park Nova. Launched in early May 2021, prices of units sold crossed $5,000 psf and hit a high of $5,838 psf for the largest penthouse. Based on caveats lodged with URA Realis as at Sept 27, the project is over 90% sold at an average price of $4,889 psf.

In June 2018, Shun Tak also purchased a detached house on a 66,452 sq ft freehold site at 14 and 14A Nassim Road for $218 million or $2,744 psf ppr. The property was redeveloped into the ultra-luxury Les Maisons Nassim offering just 14 units, with sizes starting from 6,049 sq ft.

Units at Les Maisons Nassim were sold at prices ranging from $30.764 million ($5,050 psf) for a 6,092 sq ft unit to $75 million ($6,210 psf) for the largest penthouse of 12,077 sq ft. The project was 100% sold by the end of June, with an average transacted price of $5,559 psf.

A more subdued luxury market

Since the property cooling measures in April, which saw additional buyer’s stamp duty (ABSD) for foreigners double to 60%, the luxury condo market has turned cautious. “Following the hike in ABSD for foreigners and the recent money laundering episode, the luxury residential market has been quieter,” observes Lake.

Read also: Is it a Good Deal?: The seller for this condo on Scotts Road lost $1.4 million

An interesting trend is the rise in foreign buyers with US citizenship. In 2Q2023, US nationals overtook the Chinese as the biggest group of foreign buyers in the residential market in 2Q2023, according to OrangeTee & Tie Research in a report on July 20.

The trend continued in August, with US nationals accounting for 13 of the 15 non-landed resale private homes sold to foreigners, says PropNex Research in its Sept 26 report. The remaining two foreign buyers were from Indonesia and Myanmar.

The main reason for the uptick in US buyers is that the US, together with Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, have free trade agreements (FTAs) with Singapore that allow their nationals to enjoy the same stamp duty treatment as Singapore citizens. They are, therefore exempted from paying 60% ABSD on their residential property purchase.

Lake does not rule out interest from ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWIs) with US citizenship or the other four nationalities with FTAs. “We could see a UHNWI looking to develop and build a new, high-rise development with bespoke apartments for the family’s use, like the Ambanis with Antilia,” he reckons.

Homes of the super-rich

Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s private residence, Antilia, in Mumbai’s billionaires’ row, is a 27-storey, 173m-tall tower with 400,000 sq ft of space. The top six floors are the private residential area, with amenities on the other floors, which include a 168-car garage, a ballroom, nine high-speed elevators, a 50-seat theatre, terraced gardens, swimming pools, spa, a temple, and a snow room with snowflakes emitting from the walls, according to Wikipedia. The building was designed by two US architectural firms — Chicago-based Perkins & Will and Los Angeles-based Hirsch Bedner Associates — and is said to have cost about US$2 billion ($2.7 billion).

Singapore may not have Antilia, but it has Eden. The 22-storey residential tower at 2 Draycott Park was developed by Hong Kong-based Swire Properties and completed in 2019. Eden was designed by British designer Thomas Heatherwick of Heatherwick Studio and marked his first completed residential development globally.

Eden has 20 freehold luxury units, with each four-bedroom apartment of 3,035 sq ft occupying an entire floor.  The building was sold en bloc for $293 million in April 2021. The penthouse unit on the 22nd floor fetched $18.287 million ($6,024 psf), while the lowest-floor unit (the third level) went for $13.069 million ($4,305 psf). The intermediate units from the fourth to the 21st storeys comprised the remaining $261.644 million ($4,789 psf). The buyer was the Tsai family from Taiwan, who owns Want Want Holdings, a confectionery company famous for its rice crackers, snack foods and beverages.

Eden is a redevelopment of the former Hampton Court, a four-storey, 12-unit development that Swire Properties purchased en bloc for $155 million in late December 2012. Lake brokered the deal. Eden was Swire Properties’ first residential development in Singapore.

Based on 11 Claymore’s price tag of $95 million and a land rate of $2,839 psf ppr, a developer could build an ultra-luxury development with just 10 to 15 bespoke units of at least 4,000 sq ft each and priced upwards of $4,500 psf or even $5,000 psf, says Lake.

Another option for the developer is to build a high-end condo with 64 apartments averaging 800 sq ft each. The new units could be priced above $4,000 psf. “The absolute prices will be attractive to both owner-occupiers and investors given the accessibility to Orchard Road,” says Lake.

The site at 11 Claymore will be launched for sale by tender on Sept 28, which will close on Nov 8.

Check out the latest listings for 3 Cuscaden, Park Nova, Les Maisons Nassim, Ardmore Park properties

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