The residential site on Martin Place attracted a total of 13 bids in a tender that closed today.  A GuocoLand subsidiary, First Bedok Land Pte Ltd, put in the top bid of $1,239 psf ppr. The 99-year leasehold site can yield around 450 housing units.

GuocoLand's bid was just 1.2% above the second highest bid by a consortium involving City Developments and Hong Leong Holdings. Other tenderers include MCL Land, Nanshan Group, SingLand and UOL Group joint venture and Allgreen Properties.

Nicholas Mak, SLP International's head of research, expects the breakeven price for the development to be between $1,850 and $1,910 psf. "The developer would have to launch the new condominium at above $2,100 psf. It is possible that the top bidder expected the government to relax some of the cooling measures by the time this project is ready for launch," he says.

Desmond Sim, CBRE's head of research for Singapore and Southeast Asia, says he is not surprised by the top bid, which was a record psf ppr price fetched for a pure residential on the government land sales programme. "The number of prime, pure residential sites available on the market is very limited, and developers are still hungry for such sites. The developers who participated in the tender were attracted by the affordable quantum. They were planning forward, encouraged by the recent success of Cairnhill Nine," Sim explains.

 Site location

Source: URA