Good Class Bungalows: Back to reality in 2023

December 23, 2022


The GCB that scored the highest psf price this year is at White House Park. It changed hands in August for $45.5 million or $3,017 psf (Photo: Samuel Isaac Chua/EdgeProp Singapore)

Transactions of Singapore’s most expensive homes — the Good Class Bungalow (GCB) market — wilted in 2022, with 43 deals done at a total sales value of $1.157 billion in the first 11 months of the year. This reflects a 55% plunge from the 90 GCBs that changed hands to the tune of $2.57 billion in 2021.

“Concerns over the rising cost of debt, higher inflation and a looming recession caused some investors to hold back on acquisitions until projections of global rate hikes become clearer,” says Han Huan Mei, director of research, List Sotheby’s International Realty.

GCB sales volume is expected to moderate in 2023. “The transaction level next year is not going to be super-hot like it was in 2021,” concedes GCB specialist and managing director of Newsman Realty, KH Tan. “It’s going to be similar to this year’s.”



Significant increases in bungalow prices over the past three years were to blame, with sellers constantly raising price expectations, according to property consultants. The biggest round of adjustments came after the sale of a 32,160 sq ft freehold site in the coveted Nassim Road area that fetched $218.8 million ($4,005 psf). Transacted in March 2021, it was the most expensive GCB last year in absolute terms.

The buyer was Jin Xiao Qun, wife of the founder and executive chairman of Nanofilm Technologies International, Dr Shi Xu. The seller was Sukmawati Widjaja, aka Oei Siu Hoa, whose family controls the Indonesian conglomerate Sinar Mas Group.

More at: https://www.edgeprop.sg/property-new...k-reality-2023