77 units of Kopar at Newton condo sold at launch

Apr 7, 2020


CEL Development, a fully-owned subsidiary of mainboard-listed Chip Eng Seng Corporation, has sold 77 units at the launch of its 378-unit Kopar At Newton condo project over the weekend.

The 99-year leasehold project is located off Newton Circus.

CEL executive director Michael Ng said the project average price is $2,350 per square foot (psf), as stated previously.

"We have not had time to calculate the average per square foot price for the units sold over the weekend. Most of the units that have been sold are one and two-bedroom apartments," he said.

The cheapest units transacted were a couple of one-bedders priced at $1.098 million each. Also sold was a penthouse of about 3,305 sq ft that went for $7.88 million.

"Buyers were predominantly Singapore citizens, although we also had some permanent residents and a few foreigners who are based here," said Mr Ng.

The sales office was located within Chip Eng Seng's office premises on Chin Swee Road.

There were bookings carried out via Singapore-based proptech firm Showsuite’s proprietary digital booking platform, which allowed buyers to avoid queues, crowd and contact as they signed pre-sale documents in the comfort of their homes, Showsuite said in a statement on Sunday evening. Some buyers opted to pay the 5 per cent booking deposit online instead of using conventional cheques, it added.

Kopar At Newton was the first project launched for sale amid the heightened Covid-19 guidelines around crowd avoidance announced on March 24, and ahead of the 28-day "circuit breaker" moratorium which would see all showflats closed from April 7 to May 4.

Kopar at Newton is jointly marketed by ERA, PropNex, OrangeTee & Tie and SRI.

CEL began previewing the project on March 25. "We had planned to begin sales on Good Friday (April 10). However, when we were informed last Friday that all showflats would have to be closed for one month from April 7, we decided to bring forward the start of sales," said Mr Ng.

"We already had Showsuite on board with us, and their technology certainly facilitated the quick commencement of sales on Saturday," he added.

That said, Mr Ng noted that even with the Showsuite platform, it would have been difficult to launch sales during the moratorium "because you would still need to gather some of the key people - from the developers' side as well as the key persons in charge from each of the four property agencies - even if they are not in the same physical space as the buyer and serving agents".

This would not be allowed given that, except for suppliers and supply chains of essential services, activities at all workplaces and retail outlets must be suspended during the four-week period as part of the stricter measures to minimise the further spread of Covid-19.

Showsuite chief executive officer Karamjit Singh said: "We are grateful to the four joint marketing agencies who were trained to carry out the transactions remotely, thereby achieving decentralisation. Each were given their dedicated and secure dashboards connected to our real-time inventory management platform. We also adopted video-conferencing for training and off-site tech-support to ensure the smooth running of the process."

Kopar At Newton will have two towers of 23 storeys each. Units will range from one-bedroom to five-bedroom apartments; there will also be penthouses.

This is the third project launch that Chip Eng Seng has done in partnership with Showsuite, after Park Colonial and Parc Komo.

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