http://www.straitstimes.com/archive/...-life-20141210

First-time buyers drawn to Lake Life

Published on Dec 10, 2014 1:47 AM


FIRST-TIME applicants made up almost half of the buyers at the Lake Life executive condominium (EC) in Jurong.

About 45 per cent of the project's 534 buyers had never bought a home from the Housing Board (HDB) before, noted developer Evia Real Estate.

This figure was "quite high" compared to the firm's projections, Mr Vincent Ong, managing partner at Evia Real Estate, told The Straits Times.

"We didn't expect such a big group of first-timers," he said. "We found that Lake Life has a lot of them, and a lot are younger than the rest of Singapore."

ECs are built by private developers but sold with requirements imposed by the HDB.

Buyers must form a family nucleus, for example, and must not have a gross monthly income exceeding $12,000, among other rules.

Lake Life sold 521 of its 546 units at its Nov 8 launch, a record for the most first-day sales for both ECs and private condominiums since mortgage rules were tightened in June last year.

Evia also noted that first-timers were 34 years old on average - below the average age of 40 for all buyers at Lake Life.

The combined monthly income of a unit's buyers was $9,042 on average, the firm's data shows.

And just under two-thirds of all buyers did not get a housing grant - which varies from $5,000 to $30,000 - to finance their purchase.

Lake Life is the first EC to be built in Jurong in 17 years. The area has been earmarked by the Government for a major uplift.

That may be why some of the first-timers came from as far as Tampines.

About 52 per cent of the buyers were living in Jurong, while 26 per cent were from western areas such as Bukit Panjang, Bukit Batok and Clementi.

And 20 per cent did not mind moving to Jurong from other regions such as Bedok, Serangoon, Yishun, Punggol and Woodlands. A further 2 per cent were from Tampines.

Mr Ong said buyers told him they liked Jurong for its array of shopping centres and facilities - all part of moves to develop the area into a self-contained regional commercial centre.

"Perhaps another hypothesis is that these people don't have the negative impression that Jurong is full of factories," he said. "In my time, Jurong was a swamp. (But) it has become hip and cool."

CHERYL ONG