Luxury hitting the high notes

Luxury hitting the high notes

Orchard Turn condominium touches $4,000 psf record

Joseph Yadao
[email protected]

The sky is literally the limit at Singapore's tallest building in Orchard Road.

Units at the 56-storey Orchard Residences, set atop the Orchard MRT station, were sold at prices exceeding $4,000 per square foot (psf) — breaking the previous record by its rival at Marina Bay.

In fact, unlike the previous $3,450 psf seen last year at the Marina Bay Residences, where only one unit hit that level, Orchard Residences' record-breaking feat saw "several" units being snapped up at $4,000 psf.

Units above the 30th floor have also attained prices of over $3,200 psf, said Mr Liew Mun Leong, president and CEO of CapitaLand Group, co-developer of Orchard Residences, along with Hong Kong's Sun Hung Kai Properties.

In its statement, CapitaLand said the project, which will be completed in late 2009, was boosted by inquiries from "high net worth individuals in Singapore and from the region, even before commencement of official market activities."

The 99-year luxurious condo is part of the iconic integrated retail-and-residential Orchard Turn project, which the two developers snagged after placing a $1.38 billion winning bid at a government auction.

But the action is not only at the upper echelons of the market, said a report by Jones Lang LaSalle yesterday.

In fact, the feel-good sentiment at the high-end property sector has cascaded downwards, it said, noting that prices at mass-market projects now average close to $460 psf.

Big year-end bonuses and the renewed confidence in the overall housing market can be accountable for the healthy recovery in the mass-market property sector, which registered a quarterly increase of 9.5 per cent — the highest in seven years.

Local buyers have been drawn to projects like The Centris, Yew Tee Residences and ClementiWoods. Following the strong showing of high-end properties, developers were spurred to launch more mass market projects in non-prime districts, said the report, which cited examples like Yew Tee Residences and ClementiWoods as having attracted a strong following of local buyers.

The numbers of mass market project buyers were also boosted by the growing number of Permanent Residents (PRs), it said.

According to a 2005 General Household Survey, the number of PRs rose at the rate of 30,000 annually from 2000 to 2005.

These PRs, with family in tow, often reside in mass market projects that are close to schools and major transportation nodes.

However, what is missing within the mass market is the speculative buying found at their higher-end cousins.

The 102 subsale transactions lodged in 4Q06 surpasses the previous peak set in 4Q05 by around 29.1 per cent.

The Centris, City Square Residences, The Lakeshore, Southbank and Varsity Park were some of the projects that had subsale transactions, said Jones Lang LaSalle.

Despite this increase, it only reflects 4.3 per cent of the total subsale transactions lodged in that quarter. This figure had hit 39 per cent in the 2Q95, when property speculation was at a high. URA figures indicates that the level of mass market property speculation for the first quarter of this year is likely to hover around 4.5 per cent.

The real reason why the subsales are not so high , Please use commonsense .
Sellers asking too high , buyers not willing to buy . SUPPLY and DEMAND . That is all that is the real reason . People in SG and even the foreigners are not as rich as what we think . If the market is so good , then do away with the deferred payment then we shall see .

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Originally Posted by Unregistered

The real reason why the subsales are not so high , Please use commonsense .
Sellers asking too high , buyers not willing to buy . SUPPLY and DEMAND . That is all that is the real reason . People in SG and even the foreigners are not as rich as what we think . If the market is so good , then do away with the deferred payment then we shall see .

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Yes ..... but can you just buy? Buy now? Quick!