Far East bags Angullia Mansion - $1,058 psf ppr land price

 

Far East bags Angullia Mansion
$1,058 psf ppr land price, including devt charges, is highest since 1997

By KALPANA RASHIWALA 

(SINGAPORE) Property tycoon Ng Teng Fong's Far East Organization continues to expand its presence in the prime Orchard Road belt. This time it has clinched the freehold Angullia Mansion, near the Four Seasons Park condo, through a $120 million collective sale, sources say.

Angullia Mansion: Marketing agent secured owners' unanimous approval, and called off the tender closing tomorrow. 
The price works out to a land cost of $1,058 per square foot per plot ratio (psf ppr) inclusive of development charges (DC). This is 65 per cent higher than the $643 psf ppr including DC that Wheelock Properties paid in December 2004 for Angullia View just opposite the latest site, reflecting the dramatic recovery in sentiment in the high-end residential market over the past 15 months.

More importantly, Far East's $1,058 psf ppr unit land price for Angullia Mansion is the highest for a collective sale site here since the 1996-97 market peak, property consultants say.

The price is also just 3 per cent shy of the record unit land price for a collective sale which Far East itself set in January 1997 when it bought Scotts Tower through an auction for $1,093 psf ppr including DC.

During a subsequent wave of collective sales that began in 1999, the highest price fetched was for the freehold Kim Lin Mansion on Grange Road, which went for $996 psf ppr including DC.

But the highest-ever price for a freehold residential site in Singapore is $1,122 psf ppr that Hong Leong Group paid in April 1997 for Boulevard Hotel, which has been approved for redevelopment into a condo.

And the benchmark for an all-residential 99-year leasehold site is still held by Wing Tai with its June 1997 winning bid of $1,104 psf ppr for the Draycott Park site that it has since redeveloped into the Draycott 8 condo.

Angullia Mansion, located in Angullia Park, is on 44,730 sq ft of land that is zoned for residential use with a 2.8 plot ratio (ratio of potential gross floor area to land area). A new 36-storey condo on the site could break even at about $1,400 psf or even lower, based on Far East's acquisition cost, property consultants say. The site can be redeveloped into a project of about 60-plus apartments averaging 2,000 sq ft.

Far East's offer of $120 million is understood to have led the property's marketing agent DTZ Debenham Tie Leung to call off a tender last week ahead of the scheduled closing date of tomorrow. 

Market sources say DTZ may also have called off the tender partly because it already had the unanimous agreement of owners of all 21 existing apartments at Angullia Mansion for an en bloc sale at a much lower reserve price, said to be about $106 million.

In short, Far East's $120 million offer on the table surpassed the owners' already-high expectations and there was no certainty that a tender would have resulted in a still-higher bid.

'A bird in hand is better than two in the bush, as they say,' said a market watcher.

This is the second Orchard Road property Far East has bagged this year. Last month, it clinched the former Glutton's Square plot next to Somerset MRT Station and Specialists' Shopping Centre for $421.1 million or $1,085 psf ppr in a state tender. Far East is expected to do an all-retail development on the 99-year leasehold plot.

In May last year, it bought Pacific Plaza on Scotts Road for $111 million. Far East also has stakes in Far East Plaza, Far East Shopping Centre, Lucky Plaza, Orchard Shopping Centre, Orchard Plaza and Orchard Parade Hotel, besides full ownership of Orchard Parksuites, Regency House and Elizabeth Hotel, among other properties - making it the biggest private property owner in the Orchard Road area.

The collective sale market has been hotting up since last year, as developers selectively replenish their landbanks in response to the strong recovery in home buying in the luxury segment. 

Collective sales are a good source of the prime freehold sites that developers are keen to have. 

More prime district properties are expected to hit the en bloc sale trail soon, including Habitat I and Ardmore Point along Ardmore Park, Beverly Mai in the Orchard Boulevard area and Casa Rosita along Bukit Timah Road.

However, property consultants say that with reports of higher land prices being achieved, it becomes more trying to do collective sales as owners' asking prices also rise.

 

Source: The Business Times – 8 Feb 2006