Saturday, December 09, 2006
[RealEdge] BT : GuocoLand buys Sophia Court through $230m collective sale
| Published December 9, 2006  | |||
| GuocoLand buys Sophia Court through $230m collective sale
By KALPANA RASHIWALA
MALAYSIAN tycoon Quek Leng Chan's Singapore property arm GuocoLand has bought the freehold Sophia Court through a $230 million collective sale.
This works out to about $661 psf of potential gross floor area inclusive of an estimated development charge of $790,000. Market watchers reckon the group's breakeven cost for a posh new condo on the site could be about $950-$1,000 psf. CB Richard Ellis brokered the deal. GuocoLand plans to develop the site into a condo with about 250 units and which will leverage on the terrain and sizeable land area, a company spokeswoman said. The 166,140 sq ft site is zoned for residential use with a 2.1 plot ratio and 36-metre above mean sea level height restriction, which would allow a project of up to eight storeys. The existing development, which was completed 21 years ago, comprises 188 apartments with more than 50 different unit sizes. Owners will receive sums ranging from about $856,000 to $2.65 million per unit - or about 70 per cent more than what they would have received had they sold their units on an individual basis. This is GuocoLand's second acquisition of a collective sale site this year. Earlier, it bought Casa Rosita in prime Bukit Timah and will start work on developing a 200-unit condo on the 267,426 sq ft site next year. The freehold project is expected to be launched in the later part of next year. These two acquisitions give GuocoLand a landbank of about 435,000 sq ft in the prime districts. Market watchers say the developer's strategy seems to be to focus on prime district sites but which are nonetheless outside the most-hotly contested zones like Draycott, where competition among bidders has pushed land prices to new record levels. 'That way, they can still get prime land but at relatively attractive prices,' said a market watcher. GuocoLand will also launch the 45-unit The View@Meyer early next year. | |||
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe
__,_._,___
