Sentosa Cove boomlet rocked by property cooling measures

EdgeProp Singapore

December 23, 2021



SINGAPORE (EDGEPROP) - It had been at least three years since the last house-buying wave at Sentosa Cove, Singapore’s premium waterfront enclave. This year, it has rallied. “Bungalow demand is the highest in eight years,” says Steve Tay, senior associate vice president at List Sotheby’s International Realty. Of the top 10 bungalow deals in Sentosa Cove this year (based on caveats lodged), he sold four of them.

Tay recently brokered two other bungalow deals where caveats have yet to be lodged. One is a golf course-facing bungalow at Cove Drive with a land area of 8,300 sq ft that had changed hands for over $2,300 psf. The other is also at Cove Drive but fronts the waterway and sits on a smaller site of 7,700 sq ft. That was sold for $2,052 psf.

Up until the Dec 16 property cooling measures, well-built and nicely renovated bungalows at Sentosa Cove have been commanding prices above $2,000 psf, says Tay. “Prices in Sentosa Cove had hit a new benchmark,” he adds. “It’s still below peak prices in 2010 to 2012.”



More owner-occupiers

In comparison, well-renovated bungalows in prime districts on the mainland have been going for $2,600 psf this year, Tay points out. “This time around, prices achieved at Sentosa Cove are in line with demand and market valuation, and are not at bubbly levels,” he argues. “Almost all the buyers are owner-occupiers, not speculators.”

This is in contrast to the heyday of 2010 to 2012, when the opening of the two integrated resorts had led bungalow prices to soar to a peak of $3,214 psf for a 10,111 sq ft oceanfront bungalow that changed hands for $32.5 million in October 2012. “The property cooling measures in 2013 led to a drop in demand, and a reset in pricing,” he notes.

Bungalow transactions at Sentosa Cove then plunged to just a handful of sales per year between 2014 and 2016. Prices sank to a low of $1,108 psf in September 2016: it was for the sale of an 8,126 sq ft bungalow at Cove Drive that changed hands for $9 million. Transactions revived in 2017 and 2018, before falling back to just four houses sold for the whole of 2019 after the property cooling measures were imposed in July 2018.



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