Saturday, August 26, 2006
[RealEdge] TodayOnline: Pity the poor Mercedes at Sentosa cove
 This story was printed from TODAYonline | |
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| Pity the poor Mercedes at Sentosa cove Super-rich drive up in style for bungalow land auction Weekend August 26, 2006 Jasmine Yin jasmine.yin@ IT WAS an auction to live at what is dubbed the "world's most desirable address" and the bidders had the wheels to prove it. Among the gleaming luxury cars parked outside the glass-panelled Sentosa Cove sales and information centre yesterday afternoon were at two Rolls Royces and three Lamborghinis. Remarked one participant of the closed-door auction: "They make the other Mercedes Benz, Lexus and BMW cars that are parked here look run-of-the-mill. On offer were 12 prime South Cove Collection bungalow land parcels nine plots face the ocean, two the waterway and one the fairway. Almost 400 bidders showed up, Sentosa spokesperson Robin Goh told Today. Half of them were Singaporeans. There was "an air of anticipation" inside the centre, as the bidders many of whom were from the banking, finance and medical professions sipped on wine and dined on Les Amis-catered baby scallops and French sausages while waiting for the auction to begin. From 3.20pm, the gloves were off. "It was fiercely contested and very exciting, especially for the lesser mortals present," Mr Goh quipped. "Everybody was trying to out-do each other." When the auction began, each new bid upped the price by $20,000 and one bidder got impatient. The price had reached $4.5 million and he decided to hasten the pace. "He just put up his bidding card and stated his price of $4.8 million. Then someone said, '$4.9 mil' and another shouted out '$4.95 mil'. They didn't want to hit each other $20,000 at a time, which was making the auction slow," said Mr Goh. The auction proceedings held in conjunction with Christie's Great Estates were also transmitted live via web-cast to some 10 registered bidders in Australia, London, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Malaysia. Said to be the first in Singapore real estate auctions, the web-cast enabled bidders to witness the proceedings and place their bids via telephone to their representatives present at the auction. Of the 12 successful bidders, eight were Singaporean and the rest were from Malaysia, India, Indonesia and Myanmar. All of the bungalow land parcels achieved "benchmark highs", with an ocean-front land parcel fetching $1,039 per sq foot (psf). The lowest land parcel a waterway parcel yesterday hit $656 psf. A good class bungalow in Singapore is said to fetch around $650 psf and till recently, the record price at Sentosa Cove was $500 psf. The most expensive sale yesterday yielded $8.15 million. An "extremely pleased" Ms Jennie Chua, who chairs Sentosa Cove and Sentosa and was present at the auction, said that the "bids have exceeded our expectations. Added Sentosa Cove's general manager Margaret Goh: "This highly-anticipated auction not only sets the stage for subsequent release of our land parcels in the South Cove, but also hastens the stunning transformation of Sentosa Cove into a showcase of the best in luxury real estate in Singapore." Unsuccessful bidders will still get another shot, as there are 144 more South Cove bungalow land parcels and four condominium land parcels yielding 972 homes, that are set to go on sale. | |
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// posted by Shajahan @ 9:17 AM 