Originally Posted by
august
Property boom going bust?
June 16, 2010 Wednesday, 12:20 PM
Goh Eng Yeow on the cooling of the red-hot new home sales market
(bla bla bla deleted)
There is another observation which I want to make here.
Another colleague, Lee Sushyan, highlighted on Monday that CapitaLand group president and chief executive Liew Mun Leong paid $3.74 million for a penthouse at The Interlace, a former HUDC site at the junction of Depot Road and Alexandra Road, now being redeveloped by the property giant.
His son Karl and daughter-in-law Heather Lim Mei Ern bought a 2,476 sq ft, four-bedroom apartment on the 16th level for around $2.47 million or $996 psf
Sushyan quoted Ngee Ann Polytechnic lecturer Nicholas Mak as saying that when the property market is hot, directors and their immediate family members usually get onto the VVIP list and are able to pick the choice units. But he also hedged his bets by saying that in a slow property, some directors might buy units, sometimes at a bullish price, to give confidence to buyers and investors.
I am wondering which scenario applies in this case.
But just to stir up some memories, I retrieve an old article from an ex-colleague, Colin Tan, reporting in December 2001 that CapitaLand gave some early-bird buyers a "goodwill" rebate of 5 per cent on the purchase price to compensate for the falling prices of the condos they had bought earlier.
The lucky buyers, who got the rebate, included 24 people who bought apartments at The Levelz at Farrer Road. "The statement said that among The Levelz buyers who will get a rebate are: CapitaLand president and chief executive Liew Mun Leong’s daughter, Ms Liew Cheng May…and director Lim Chin Beng’s son, Mr Arthur Lim," he wrote.