Kensington Park condo might gun for mega en-bloc sale again

Apr 08, 2022



OWNERS at the 314-unit Kensington Park Condominium in Serangoon Gardens are once again eyeing a collective sale, nearly 4 years after their previous efforts at a billion-dollar price tag.

At least 80 per cent of the owners have consented to the potential deal this time round, and the marketing agent is understood to be CBRE. However, there is no indication yet of whether and when a tender will be launched.

A notice dated Apr 4 said that owners of 251 of the 314 units, making up about 80.1 per cent of the total share value and 80.2 per cent of the total area of all lots, have signed the collective sale agreement.

Eldan Law is the law firm appointed for the en-bloc sale, said the notice.

In 2018, Kensington Park unit owners were aiming for S$1.05 billion. However, a round of property market curbs including higher additional buyer's stamp duty (ABSD) rates kicked in on Jul 6 that year, slowing the collective-sale momentum, especially for big sites.

The condo's marketing agent at the time had gathered signatures from 70 per cent of the owners by Jul 25, 2018, it was reported then. The collective sale committee told Today newspaper that it was hoping to clinch the required 80 per cent approval by the fourth quarter of the year. In the months that followed, no tender appeared to have materialised for the development.

The reserve price has not been confirmed for the latest en-bloc attempt, although some unit owners and consultants have said it is likely to be in the region of the previous indicative price.

Built in 1990, the condominium is located on Kensington Park Drive; the land it sits on has a 999-year tenure which started in 1878.

Since 2017, units there have been resold at an average of nearly S$1.9 million or S$1,104 per square foot (psf), the Realis caveats database showed.

Most recently, a 1,658 square foot apartment on the ninth floor fetched S$2.4 million or S$1,448 psf this January. In March last year, another unit of the same size on the 17th floor changed hands at S$1.8 million or S$1,086 psf.

The Kensington Park site is zoned for residential use with a gross plot ratio of 2.1, under the Urban Redevelopment Authority's Master Plan 2019.

It sits next to The Garden Residences, a 613-unit condominium by Keppel Land and Wing Tai Holdings launched in June 2018.

Chomp Chomp Food Centre is a 4-minute drive away. Educational institutions nearby include Serangoon Garden Secondary School, the International French School, Zhonghua Primary School, Peicai Secondary School and CHIJ Our Lady of Good Counsel.

A few large sites have been pushing ahead with their collective-sale aspirations in spite of the cooling measures introduced last December, with developers continuing to display a healthy appetite for land, going by the firm bids in recent government land sales tenders.

The 99-year leasehold Chuan Park condominium, a 9-minute drive away from Kensington Park, relaunched its collective-sale tender on Mar 14 at S$938 million. Its earlier tender had closed in November 2021, and was followed by private-treaty negotiations. Chuan Park comprises 444 residential units and 2 commercial units.

On Apr 4, mixed-use development International Plaza in Tanjong Pagar relaunched its en-bloc sale tender with an unchanged reserve price of S$2.7 billion. The 50-storey property has 962 shop units, offices, apartments and a strata-titled car park.