News by Cecilia Chow

Tucked away on a cliff on the northeastern coast of Koh Samui and surrounded by mature trees is the Samujana Villas estate. It contains 27 villas, each with spectacular unobstructed views of the ocean and the beach. Unlike most villa developments, Samujana evolved one villa at a time in the early years.

The weekend of April 1 and 2 marked 2017’s first new residential project launch from Vietnam — RichLane Residences, Mapletree Investments’ maiden condominium project in Ho Chi Minh City. For the largely Singaporean audience, the most riveting fact during the 25-minute presentation by Marc Townsend, managing director of CBRE ­Vietnam, was that the starting price of US$95,000 (S$132,825) (RM421,610) for a studio in the high-end condo is equivalent to the price of a new Honda Civic in Singapore.

A rare corner shophouse on Serangoon Road has been put on the market for sale. The owner, a semi-retired businessman who wants to be known as Chan, has been holding on to the shophouse for a decade. Chan purchased the property in early 2007, and spent S$200,000 refurbishing it. The ground floor is currently tenanted to a 24-hour coffee shop and there is a rental apartment in each of the three upper floors.

Last November, Savills Investment Management divested two assets in Singapore — its stake in China­town Point to partners Perennial Real Estate Holdings and Singapore Press Holdings for S$92.6 million, and 77 Robinson Road to CLSA Capital Partners for S$530.8 million. “I think the timing of the disposal of 77 ­Robinson Road was fortuitous,” says Justin O’Connor, the London-based CEO of Savills Investment Management, who was in Singapore recently.

Student accommodation, once considered a niche sector, has emerged as one of the most sought after. Last year, Temasek’s wholly-owned subsidiary Mapletree Investments went on a shopping spree. In May, it snapped up a portfolio of 25 student housing assets with 5,500 beds in the UK for reportedly £417 million (S$731 million). Then, in November, it purchased seven student housing properties in the US — with about 6,000 beds — for US$653.2 million (S$911 million) (RM2891).

Tang Kok Thye, with his family in tow, is a regular visitor at showflats of project launches. He was at the preview of Clement Canopy on Feb 11, and joined a throng of 10,000 at Grandeur Park Residences the following weekend. He intends to be present at the debut weekend of Seaside Residence in April. This is because Tang is an architect and associate partner of ADDP Architects, the firm that designed all three condominium projects. It also designed iNz Residence, the first EC project to be launched this year.

A condominium unit at The Marina Collection in Sentosa Cove was to be put up for auction a third time by Edmund Tie & Co ­(ET&Co) on March 29. However, it was sold prior to the auction, at a price believed to be around S$3 million (RM9.5 million). The unit was a mortgagee sale, and the recent buyer, a foreign investor.

Two adjoining, prime freehold residential redevelopment sites owned by two Singaporean families have been put on the market. One is a rectangular plot fronting Balmoral Road; the other is located on Ewe Boon Road.

The year 2013 was a seminal one for property developers. That was when the URA private residential price index scaled new heights in 2Q2013, surpassing the two previous peaks of 2Q2008 and 2Q1996. At end-June 2013, the Monetary Authority of Singapore sprang the mother lode of macroprudential policies — the total debt servicing ratio (TDSR) loan framework — which when combined with the punitive property cooling measures, triggered a downslide in private residential property prices for 14 straight quarters.

Over the past three years, the government has repeatedly said that it is “too early” or “premature” for the property cooling measures to be lifted. This was despite increasingly strident calls by property developers and other industry players for some of the more punitive measures to be tweaked.