About 1,970 new housing units to be added to market from 4 sites

More new housing units will be added to the market to give buyers more choices. The Housing and Development Board (HDB) will put on sale on Wednesday two residential sites in Sembawang and Sengkang.

It also put two other sites in Punggol and Yishun on the reserve list for public tender early next month.

They are expected to yield about 1,970 dwelling units. About 60 per cent or about 1,215 are Executive Condominium (EC) units.

Market watchers told Channel NewsAsia that this supply of ECs will give the “sandwiched” class more room to choose.

Situated at Sembawang Road/Canberra Drive), the land parcel in Sembawang sits in an established private residential area.

It’s near Sembawang MRT Station and the bus interchange. It’s also close to neighbourhood shopping malls and schools such as the Singapore Sports School and Republic Polytechnic.

The site can be developed for landed housing, condominiums or flats, and can yield about 290 units. The tender for this site will close on June 8.

The land parcel in Sengkang (Sengkang East Avenue/Buangkok Drive), near Punggol Park, is accessible by LRT and two expressways.

The HDB has proposed about 465 EC units.

New EC units are sold with initial eligibility and ownership restrictions similar to public housing and will be fully converted to private housing after 10 years.

The minimum offer price for this site is S$103,800,000. The tender for this site will close on 25 May.

Next month, two more sites will be up for public tender at Punggol for ECs and in Yishun for condominiums.

The lease term for these sites is 99 years.

The HDB said the total potential supply quantum of 10,550 units from the Confirmed List and Reserve List for the first half of the 2010 Government Land Sales Programme is the highest in the history of the programme.

Besides the GLS programme, there is also supply from projects in the pipeline, which have been initiated earlier, both from the government and private land sources.

As at the fourth quarter of 2009, there were about 60,500 private residential units in the pipeline which would be completed over the next few years.

Of these 60,500 private residential units, there was also an inventory of about 34,200 private housing units which have not been sold yet, and can be made available for sale within the year if the developers choose to do so.

The HDB said the potential supply of land together with the supply from projects in the pipeline will be more than sufficient to meet the demand for private housing.

The government will continue to monitor the market and ensure that there’s sufficient supply.

If necessary, more supply can be injected via the second half of the 2010 GLS Programme.

Chief executive officer of PropNex, Mohd Ismail, said those who have been feeling the squeeze will find some relief from the new supply of Exceutive Condominiums.

“There’s been a fair bit of concern about this ‘sandwiched class’ not being able to afford private property because of the increasing prices of the private property as well as rising prices of the HDB resale market. As such, the ECs will come in very handy,” he said.

Ngee Ann Polytechnic real estate lecturer, Nicholas Mak, said interest from developers will be high.

He expects more than 10 bids for each site.

“Some of these sites are actually in established residential areas, and one or two or them are even fairly near to MRT lines or LRT lines,” he said.

Mr Mak added that pricing for ECs typically ranges from S$250 to S$320 per square foot.

New ECs are usually about 25 per cent lower than new private condos.

Source : Channel NewsAsia – 13 Apr 2010

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