General

DBSS land sales halted

Land sales under the Design, Build and Sell Scheme (DBSS) have been suspended. This is because the DBSS is currently under review by the Ministry of National Development (MND). Responding to media queries, MND said the Housing & Development Board (HDB) would not proceed with the sale of a Bendemeer Road site which was scheduled for launch in the first half of this year. MND has reiterated it would...

Grand Tower up for en bloc sale

Grand Tower, a boutique freehold residential site located in the Novena area has been launched for sale by tender. The redevelopment site is located at the junction of Sinaran Drive and Moulmein Rise. The 33-year old tower block consists of 28 apartments that occupies an area of almost 22 thousand square foot (sq ft) in total. Its marketing agent Savills Singapore said that the site can potentially be...

MND confirms it is reviewing HDB’s DBSS

The Ministry of National Development (MND) has confirmed that it is reviewing the Housing and Development Board's (HDB's) Design, Build and Sell Scheme (DBSS). "Pending the ongoing review, HDB will not proceed with the sale of the Bendemeer Road site, originally scheduled in 1H2011," MND said in a statement. This came after National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan said he had suspended future land...

S’pore office rents continue to rise

Office rents continued trending upwards in the second quarter, despite a substantial amount of space to be completed this year. Based on a basket of existing buildings tracked by DTZ Research, the average gross rent of offices in Raffles Place rose 5.4 per cent quarter-on-quarter to S$9.80 per square foot per month in Q2. Rents in the Harbourfront and Anson/Tanjong Pagar area increased to S$7.30 per...

Office occupancy levels in S’pore rise in Q2

: Occupancy levels across all major office micromarkets in Singapore rose in the second quarter, according to property consultant CB Richard Ellis (CBRE). Occupancy levels at the Fringe CBD - which includes office buildings in Tanjong Pagar, Orchard Road and Beach Road/City Hall area - increased 0.7 percentage point on-quarter to a record 94.3 per cent. Occupancy levels in the Core CBD - which covers...

Penthouse at The Trillium sold for $12.4 million

Views of the Singapore River are commanding a premium today. On June 3, a penthouse unit of 5,511 sq ft at The Trillium on Kim Seng Road was sold for $12.4 million, or $2,250 psf. Within a week, a second unit, slightly smaller at 1,798 sq ft, was sold for $3.4 million, or $1,908 psf. The Trillium penthouse transaction is the highest so far for the development in terms of price psf. The development has 236...

Two developers clarify profit margins over DBSS projects

Two developers of the Housing and Development Board's Design, Build and Sell Scheme projects have filed clarifications on the profit margins published in an article this week in The Business Times (BT). In a joint media statement yesterday, Hoi Hup Sunway - the consortium behind DBSS projects City View@Boon Keng and The Peak@Toa Payoh - expressed concern over the gross profit margins published by the...

Business Times article ‘contained serious errors’, says MND

The Ministry of National Development (MND) spoke out strongly yesterday against a Business Times (BT) article earlier this week on developers' profit margins for the Housing and Development Board's Design, Build and Sell Scheme (DBSS) projects. In a press statement last night, MND director (Housing) Han Kok Juan said the article published on Thursday "was highly irresponsible as it contained serious...

GLP in final talks for S$2.12b of Japan properties: Sources

Singapore's Global Logistic Properties (GLP) is in final negotiations to buy LaSalle Investment Management's Japanese portfolio of real estate that could fetch up to ¥140 billion (S$2.12 billion), according to people familiar with the matter. If successful, the acquisition would be the biggest property deal in Japan in two years, It would also mark the single biggest foreign investment into Japan since...

Prices of resale flats, private homes continue to rise

Prices of HDB resale flats have increased 2.9 per cent in the second quarter of this year compared to the previous quarter. Flash data released on Friday by the Housing and Development Board (HDB) shows that its resale price index in the second quarter this year came in at 179.9. The rate of price growth in the second quarter is higher than the previous quarter's 1.6 per cent hike. HDB said it is on...