Near Farrer Park MRT
60 units
18 storeys
TOP: 2011
Average prices:$780 psf
preview on 31/04/07
Printable View
Near Farrer Park MRT
60 units
18 storeys
TOP: 2011
Average prices:$780 psf
preview on 31/04/07
Friday, March 30, 2007
Oxford Suites soft launched tomorrow
Property developer Hiap Hoe will be soft launching its latest residential development tomorrow.
Oxford Suites is a freehold development located at the junction of Oxford Road and Owen Road.
It consists of 57 apartments, ranging from studios to three-bedroom units.
The units are being sold at $780 per square foot, and Hiap Hoe is offering a deferred payment scheme.
Oxford Suites is Hiap Hoe's second residential development launched this year.
The company has three more in the pipeline, including developments along Cavenagh Road, Bukit Timah Road and Saint Thomas Walk.
Sounds good. Will this be nearby Mera Spring? I think it should be on Owen Road side because of the 18 storey height and not so far in like the Novelty developments are. Those further inside have height restriction, like Vanadium.
Quote:
Originally Posted by orange
Hiap Hoe lauched 60 units of Oxford Suities 2 weeks ago unofficially. A check with Orangtee, agent for Oxford suites confirmed that only 5 units of 1 bedroom and 1 unit of 2 bedrooms are still available. Average price of the Oxford suite is $800psf. Oxford suites should enable Hiap Hoe to make a gross profit of at least $20mio or net of at least $18mio as selling expenses is really low since it is moving so fast. Add to the cuscaden royale of profit close of $60mio net and with progressive recognition of profits, Hiap Hoe shld be able to make a eps of $0.15 for FY2007. The more exciting parts are when they launch Phoenix Court and the combined development of Le Chateau and the most recent acquisation of Clemenceau Court. These 3 areas will generate close to 380,000 GFA; and at a net profit of $600psf, u r looking at close to additional profit $200mio. So, increase your holding now or regrets to see it moving to $1.50 level.
They still have Lewis court which I think they will launch in 3rd qtr.
Cuscaden Royale - Hiap Hoe's gem
THE EDGE SINGAPORE (APRIL 2, 2007)
Hiap Hoe has four more niche projects to be launched. First is Oxford Suites, a freehold, 57-unit development at the junction of Oxford and Owen Roads, soft-launched on the weekend of March 31 to April 1. The average price is expected to be $780 psf.
Another development in the pipeline is the site of the former Le Chateau, along Cavenagh Road, which it acquired for $46.8 million last year and has a GFA of 114,486 sq ft. The project is expected to be launched in the 3rd quarter. Then, there is the 29-unit luxury development at St Thomas Walk (near Somerset MRT, formerly the Phoenix Court en-bloc sale site it bought last year for $88.1 million). The development will feature large units with3 bedrooms starting from 3196 sq ft and penthouses above 6000 sq ft. It is expected to be ready for sale by year-end or early next year.
The 3rd site, along Bukit Timah Road, has a GFA of 33056 sq ft and is slated for launch in 4Q. As prices continue to climb and the supply of development land tightens, buyers will be prepared to look beyond the prime districts.
Hiap Hoe has a landbank of about 350,000 sq ft, mainly in prime locations. It focuses on the high-end segment with developments in Districts 9, 10 and 11, and also in the mid-range market with projects on the city fringes.
HIAP HOE'S OXFORD SUITES FULLY SOLD AT HIGHER-THAN-EXPECTED AVERAGE PRICE
June 4, 2008
The incredible shrinking condo
Compact city studios under 500 sq ft an emerging trend
By Fiona Chan, Property Reporter
A TINY studio under construction near Farrer Park may well be the smallest private apartment to be built in Singapore.
It squeezes a bay window, a teeny kitchenette, a bathroom and space for a bed into just 312 sq ft - about half the size of a squash court.
The unit - part of the new Kent Residences in Kent Road - is the most extreme example of an emerging trend in private housing: compact, capsule condos within the city.
Targeted at young singles and property investors, some new studios have shrunk in size to as little as 300 to 400 sq ft, as developers try to make their homes more affordable amid rising costs.
At least 20 new projects launched within the past year have had units smaller than 500 sq ft, which was almost unheard of before last year.
Half of these projects went even further, cutting their smallest units to under 400 sq ft, making them on a par with those in famously space-squeezed cities such as New York and Hong Kong.
Shoebox-sized studios are not entirely new here. A few older condos like Mountbatten Lodge have units less than 400 sq ft in size.
What's new is the recent proliferation of such projects, especially in Farrer Park, Balestier and Dhoby Ghaut. Most are built by boutique developers and have under 100 units.
Thanks to the property boom last year, home prices in these areas start at just below $1,000 per sq ft (psf) and go up to $1,600 psf. For a 400 sq ft condo, this translates to well below $700,000.
'Construction costs are going up and space is becoming very expensive, so developers have to offer something that is affordable for the majority of home-buyers,' said Ms Peggy Ngiam, project director of Huttons Real Estate Group.
Her firm has marketed several projects with unusually small units, including Thomson V Two in Upper Thomson Road, where half the 74 units were under 500 sq ft, with the smallest just 355 sq ft.
With a typical unit priced at a mere $377,000, the project sold out within a day.
In fact, most of these boutique projects are fully sold, and the most recent launches have seen good take-up rates.
Ms Ngiam said buyers are a mix of locals and foreigners. Some are single professionals while others are investors looking for good rental yields.
At Citigate in Rangoon Road, which was launched on Monday, 22 of its 32 units were sold within a day. The smallest unit, a 441 sq ft studio, is expected to fetch rentals of $3,000 to $3,500 a month, she said.
Small units also reflect growing demand from singles who want to live in the city on a tight budget, said DTZ Debenham Tie Leung senior research director Chua Chor Hoon. She said developers focused on building large apartments last year and may now see a shortage of small ones.
But other experts warned that buyers may not realise how small these units really are.
'In the last market run-up in 1996, when prices got higher and higher, the units got smaller and smaller,' said Mr Colin Tan, head of research and consultancy at Colliers International. Even then, those units were rarely under 500 sq ft, and came without today's bay windows and air-con ledges, which eat into liveable space, he added.
While most projects offer showflats, the smallest units are often sold on the basis of their floor plans. At Kent Residences, which has just 13 units, buyers were shown only a model of the project and its floor plans.
'In most cases, when people see the finished flat they have bought off the plan, they say it's smaller than they expected. Can you imagine what that would be like for a 300 sq ft unit?' said Mr Tan.
[email protected]
A 300 sq ft apartment is roughly the size of...
# Two of the Old Chang Kee kiosks in front of Ngee Ann City
# Seven ping-pong tables
# Ten standard-size office workstations
# Half an average three-room flat, and about a quarter of an average five-room flat
# Half the size of a squash court
There seems to have quite a number of developments over there.
June 29, 2008
property
'Mickey Mouse homes' snapped up near Little India
Buyers like these small apartments as they are close to the city and they seem more affordable
By Joyce Teo, Property Correspondent
The area near Farrer Park MRT station in Little India - once largely shunned by developers - has become the playground of smaller property players.
These little-known companies have bought land there and launched projects that range in size from as few as 13 units to around 50.
Recently, Suites 123 in Rangoon Road - which has 37 apartments - was largely sold out, despite weak market sentiment.
Before that, other small projects such as Citigate Residence, Suites@Owen and Soho@Farrer were also sold out. Some of these projects were sold at around $1,000 to $1,100 per sq ft (psf), which is not cheap, market watchers noted.
However, as the apartments are usually quite small, these 'Mickey Mouse units' appear to be priced at relatively low levels. Most of these projects have shop units as well.
Mr David Neubronner, the executive director of Savills Residential, noted that many of the one-bedroom units are just 400 sq ft and the two-bedroom units 700 sq ft.
He added: 'A two-roomer may cost $700,000.'
That, he said, is a 'very attractive entry point' for buyers looking to stay near the city.
At Suites@Owen, the 20 apartments range in size from just 366 sq ft for a one-bedroom unit to 1,044 sq ft for a two-bedroom penthouse.
The sizes shrink even further at the 13-unit Kent Residences on Kent Road. The smallest apartment is just 312 sq ft - roughly half the size of an average three-room HDB flat, or about the size of two Old Chang Kee kiosks.
The developer of Kent Residences, which is also behind Tyrwhitt 139 on Tyrwhitt Road, said the area is attractive because it is near an MRT station.
These projects target singles and small families. The buyers are mainly Singaporeans in their 30s but there are also some foreigners.
Mr Neubronner said the projects attract many end-users as the area is at the city fringe, which is getting more exciting.
Market watchers said Farrer Park's proximity to Little India might deter single females or families with kids, but not necessarily single men.
Still, there are many projects located north of Farrer Park MRT station, across the road from the buzz and chaos of Little India - and less savoury activities at Desker Road.
While many people also do not want to live near the Little India conservation area, some love living there, including artists and film-makers.
The area is full of history and character. Race Course Road, for instance, took its name from Singapore's first race course, built in Farrer Park in 1842. One of the country's oldest Buddhist temples, Leong San Buddhist Temple, is also in the vicinity.
And when some of the newer developments are completed, the residents might include a famous face or two. At least one local celebrity is believed to have bought a unit in a small development north of Farrer Park MRT station.
For buyers, the good thing about these small projects is that they are mostly either freehold or 999-year leasehold. With the MRT station only a short walk away, residents are basically two MRT stops away from town.
However, market watchers warn that buyers - those who bought off developer's plans - might not realise how small the units are until they see the completed apartments.
Nowadays, the space allocated for bay windows, planter boxes, air-con ledges and balconies can eat significantly into your living area.
'In some instances, they can make up as much as 20 per cent or more of the total. If you want more 'liveable' space, you should do a like-for-like comparision before you make your decision,' said Chesterton International's head of research and consultancy, Mr Colin Tan.
For instance, at the 56-unit Citigate Residence on Rangoon Road, the 441 sq ft and 517 sq ft advertised for its smaller units include the bay window, air-con ledge, planter and balcony.
Nevertheless, many buyers could still bite simply because of the seemingly low absolute prices and projected high rental yields, market watchers say.
'Consumers must be more prudent. The absolute value of such developments might be low, but investors have to consider whether they can find a buyer or tenant later,' said HSR Property Group's executive director, Mr Eric Cheng. 'They are suitable only for those who are comfortable with small units.'
He said that many buyers might not realise the units are too small to live in until the projects are completed.
'One of my friends who bought a 580 sq ft unit on Mackenzie Road told me it's like a bird's nest,' he added.
[email protected]
Any idea why they are called Micky Mouse? Are they famous and popular?
Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop
After two years of exuberance, activity in the private housing market in Singapore has slowed to a near standstill. The number of new property sales, measured on a monthly basis, contracted 64.9 percent in April, as buyers became more cautious and took a wait-and-see attitude. As a result, several well-publicized launches have been put on the backburner for an indefinite period and some developers have started to drop asking prices, for example at The Lakeshore in Jurong West and Blu Coral in Telok Kurau.
An air of doom and gloom has settled over Singapore’s residential property market and vultures are circling, proclaiming the Singapore residential property market is about to collapse by 30-40 percent, but are they interpreting the facts correctly? Not all experts agree, with some calling the current market downturn more of a short-term blip rather than the beginning of a market collapse.
“The slowing of the property market is a natural development after prices skyrocketed on the back of very strong demand,” says Sherman Chan, an economist at Moody’s Economy.com, “but a 30-40 percent collapse is highly unlikely. The construction sector is an important growth driver for Singapore and I don’t think the government would let it collapse as there would be wider ramifications. Let’s not forget that the government imposed some measures last year to cool down the market and these measures could very well be lifted if need be.”
In recent weeks, several bearish reports have forecast a dramatic plunge in home values over the next two years. Barclays Capital believes private home prices could slide 28-30 percent by 2010, while Credit Suisse predicted a price decline of 30 percent in 2008-2009.
The bears are pointing to several factors suggesting the writing is on the wall. The stock of unsold condominiums (as measured by projects that have been issued a sales license) rose to 10,861 units in the first quarter of this year, 34 percent higher than the quarterly average in 2007 and back up to levels not seen since June 2005. Net CPF withdrawals for private property have turned negative for the first time, reflecting the decline in transaction as well as profit taking by local buyers who own more than one property. “This has never happened before, not even during the 1998 Asian Financial Crisis,” notes Barclay Capital economist Waiho Leong. And vacancy rates in non-landed property developments have also risen in recent months toward 6.3 percent, compared with 5.6 percent in the last quarter of 2007. Credit Suisse, in its recent report, argues that this will rise further to 9.8-19 percent, on a base and worst case scenario. This could in turn trigger a sharp fall in rentals further weakening the market. “The last time vacancies shot up from 5.8 percent to 9.7 percent, rentals fell by 41percent,” Credit Suisse Tricia Song wrote referring to the year 1996.
Casting long shadows on the markets are the estimated 66,000 home units expected to be completed between 2009-2012, as well as the possible unwinding of speculative purchases. Unless many of the developments that are currently in the pipeline are postponed, a cumulative surplus could provide a glut that will be felt most acutely in 2010, Leong warned.
The bears also argue that given the current thin sales environment, the small price growth recorded by the URA indices do not reflect sentiment and can easily be biased by a few high-end sales. A better gauge of sentiment is land prices and developers’ waning appetite for recent URA auctions, they say. In May, a 99-year residential leasehold site in Choa Chu Kang Drive attracted a top bid of only $203 per square foot per plot ratio, well below the $230-$270 psf ppr range the market had expected.
But not everybody agrees. “I think bad interpretation of data is causing the string of bad news,” says Ku Swee Yong, Director, Savills Residential Private Limited.
Ku points out that the supply figures touted by some analysts bundle together planned, under construction and complete unit numbers. “The reality is that any apartments expected to complete in 2010 but still not under construction today, is unlikely to be completed on time given that the average construction period for a 20 storey apartment block takes 24 months from foundation works till handover” Ku remarks.
“The construction sector is tight on resources today and unless there are policy changes given to encourage faster pace of construction, the ‘oversupply scenario’ is not a realistic one,” he adds.
Tay Huey Ying, Director for Research and Consultancy at Colliers, agrees, pointing out that although the supply pipeline appears a “bit on the high side,” once delays and abandonment of project developments are taken into account, “the new supply will be much lower than expected.”
Leonard Tay, director, CBRE Research also points out that many of the units will be taken out by either en-bloc sellers who need to relocate, or new expatriates moving here. “There is a lack of activity in the market, but property prices have been holding. I believe there are still a lot of buyers in the market with ready cash; they’re just waiting for what’s next,” Tay says, forecasting that the luxury end of the market may “dip just a bit” this year, but prices should hold for now.
As for the units bought under the deferred payment scheme that some say will be “dumped” in the market as the construction is completed, Ku says their number is probably limited to around 2,900, 10 percent of the 29,000 units that URA has given approval for sale under Deferment Payment Scheme. “Not that much to worry about,” he says.
Many property consultants are pointing to the long-term prospects for the Singapore property market supported by the positive vibe stemming from the Integrated Resorts and events such as the F1 race and the 2010 Youth Olympics.
“I think the Singapore property market is still pretty strong. We could see a mild correction, but I don’t see that as a concern because the government is still trying to attract expatriates to work here and they will contribute to demand for properties,” Chan says.
Tay also points out that given the anticipated continuing influx of foreigners, the 15-year historical average number of 7,000 new units needed a year is likely to increase to 8,000 to even 10,000 units.
“So I don’t foresee an oversupply situation as yet. I don’t think the sky is about to fall in,” she says.
told by my Singapore colleagues that this area is very near the India town. is it true?
such small projects a waste of time. Would suggest a mre sizeable and reasnably priced beacon heights in current mkt.Quote:
Originally Posted by expat
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Is Suntec very near India town?Quote:
Originally Posted by expat
Think this is okay.
Quite segregated from the main serangoon road area.
Quote:
Originally Posted by expat
i went through little india and saw the people loosely standing along the streets and staring at every passer-by going through, very threatening. streets there are littered with trash. Very thick ethnic Indian culture there. If you want to live in Rangoon Rd, have to be tolerant to that culture. For me personally, would shun the place.....
Quote:
Originally Posted by kk_
Agree. I would also shun Suntec area, Mount Sophia area, Rochor area, Bugis area, Novena area, etc.. All these areas are close to Little India.Quote:
Originally Posted by No No
if you enjoy living in the midst of bombay street culture, that is ur preference. my wife had to grip her handbag tightly while walking thru the area, coz the area feels unsafe. Nothing against the people there, becoz it is their culture and their territory. what i am saying is if you want to live there, you have to be part of them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Racist
Err ... we did heed your advice what ... we never say we want to stay in Little India what ... some of us are going to stay in Farrer Park, others in Mount Sophia, Rochor, Bugis, Novena, etc..Quote:
Originally Posted by suit yourself
For those who are going to stay in Farrer Park, some would be staying in Oxford Suites.
Errrrr.....Farrer Park and Little India are in the same vicinity...
Quote:
Originally Posted by JHJ
Err ... Mount Sophia is also in the same vicinity ... so don't stay there too?Quote:
Originally Posted by SAME SAME
Err ... Rochor is also in the same vicinty ... don't go Rochor to shop?
Err ... Novena is also in the same vicinty ... don't go Novena to eat?
Siow lah! You listen to that fella!Quote:
Originally Posted by Unreg¡stered
There are so many areas surrounding Little India. Yet he specifically targets Farrer Park.
Find out his motive before you continue to waste your time with him.
Hi,
Can anyone advise on this project. Looking at the 1 bedder. Currently, the price for the one bedder seems to be around $1200 psf.
Its near the buzz of Little India, if you like it. Yet it is not so near as to be in the heart of it. Full of amenities. City fringe. Accessible. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Scary
Thanks for the info. Just wonder whether is the 1200 psf price for a mid floor 1 bedder a reasonable price for this project?
You have to decide on that yourself. That is the market now. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Scary
Noted with thanks.
With the pending launch of Cityscape, there are speculations that Oxford Suite may see a jump in prices. However, noted that Cityscape does not have 1 bedder, in this case, will the launch of Cityscape bring about the possible rise in the prices of the 1 bedder of Oxford Suites? Anyone has any views?
the market will move in tandem...doesn't matter it is 1 bedder or 2...Quote:
Originally Posted by Scary