The two-storey shophouses at 6 and 7 Perak Road, located in the Jalan Besar/Little India precinct, have a total built-up area of 5,360 sq ft and a land area of approximately 2,870 sq ft, with an 11.4m-wide frontage along Perak Road. Features include mezzanine space and approval for usage as a backpackers’ hostel.

Gracelynn Zhu of PropNex Shophouse Elites, which is marketing the property, notes that given their well-kept condition and strategic location in District 8, surrounded by amenities and close to Bugis, the properties enjoy strong rental demand. The property is currently being offered via tender with a guide price of $13 million, which works out to $2,425 psf.

With the recovery of the tourism sector gaining strong momentum, Zhu believes the properties may be ideal for hostel operators as well as investors seeking assets that can provide strong rental and capital growth. She estimates that the shophouses could potentially bring in a gross rental yield of over 3%.

The vendor is looking to sell the shophouses with vacant possession, giving the new owner the opportunity to decide which type of tenant profile they will choose for the property. Being zoned for commercial use, no additional buyer’s stamp duty is applicable on the purchase of the properties.

With the tender for the property closing on May 8 at 3pm, it presents an excellent opportunity to obtain a well-maintained, conveniently located asset. Interested parties may expect to capture rising rental demand as well as potential capital value appreciation in the future.…

Sandeep Sethi has been appointed as the division president of JLL’s Work Dynamics for Asia Pacific. This business unit provides clients with services concerning the whole real estate life cycle such as integrated facilities management, construction management services, sustainability and workplace consulting, workplace experience and lease transaction management. Sethi’s role will expand from his current managing director and head of Work Dynamics in West Asia.

He has worked in the corporate sector for over 27 years, which includes 10 years of experience at JLL. During this period, he has been successful in building client relationships, and is currently in charge of 160 million sq ft of office space across 1,500 clients in countries such as India, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, and Bangladesh.

With this promotion, Sethi will now be responsible for the North Asia market as well. His responsibilities include growing JLL’s market share in China and Hong Kong, in addition to providing services to clients. He will be based in Gurgaon, and will report to Susheel Koul, the CEO of Work Dynamics for Asia Pacific.

Koul commented, “Sandeep is an established leader and a respected client advisor with an astute understanding of the dynamic nature of commercial real estate. His appointment reinforces JLL’s commitment to developing and elevating our people to serve our rapidly diversifying client base across Asia Pacific.”

This promotion is evidence of JLL’s commitment to the development of the Work Dynamics business in the region, as well as to their people. This is especially pertinent, as the Asia Pacific region is expecting less in terms of real estate investments for the year 2022, due to interest rate hikes and a cooling sentiment, as reported by JLL.

However, investors in the region remain eager to take advantage of opportunistic deals in 2023, as reported by CBRE. With Sandeep Sethi taking on the role of division president of Work Dynamics in Asia Pacific, JLL looks set to make the most of the prospective investment opportunities that the region has to offer.…

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Singapore’s real estate investment scene got off to a slow start of $4.2 billion in quarter one of 2023, according to global real estate firm Knight Frank. This marked a decrease of 61% year over year compared to 1Q2022’s $10.8 billion and is the lowest quarterly total since 2Q2020, when the government enforced “circuit breaker” measures.

Residential deals amounted to $1.6 billion in the first quarter, including the collective sales of Meyer Park, Bagnall Court and Holland Tower which totalled some $583.8 million. The sale of Holland Tower is the first successful residential en bloc transaction in the Core Central Region (CCR) since property cooling measures were imposed in December 2021, indicating a return of interest for prime location development sites.

However, Chia Mein Mein, Head of Capital Markets (Land & Collective Sale) at Knight Frank Singapore, notes that the en bloc environment remains challenging due to the gulf in price expectations between sellers and developers. From 2021 until now, collective sales have had a success rate of around 33%, compared to the en bloc sales success rate of 63%, during the period of 2017 to 2018.

The commercial market saw minimal action in 1Q2023, with the sale of 39 Robinson Road to Yangzijiang Shipbuilding amounting to $399 million, while Frasers Centrepoint Trust and Frasers Property acquired a 50% stake in Nex for $652.5 million.

Industrial sector investment sales rose 62.8% quarter to quarter to $681.1 million, due to the market turning away from commercial properties and awaiting a repricing of assets. Notable deals in this sector include the acquisition of four Cycle & Carriage properties by M&G Real Estate at approximately $333 million,
and the disposal of 12 and 31 Tannery Lane by Ho Bee Land for $115 million.

Knight Frank predicts the pace of investment activity in Singapore to worsen before improving due to macroeconomic uncertainties and volatility in the global banking sector. Financing is becoming more difficult for buyers, investors, developers, and banks, and will remain so until signs of stabilisation appear in the global economy and financial conditions.

With this in consideration, Knight Frank has amended its projections for full-year investment sales from a range between $22 billion and $25 billion to a range between $20 billion and $22 billion. Investors are likely to remain cautious while they wait for early signs of repricing before making decisions.…

The property at 1 Benoi Road in Singapore is being launched for sale via an expression of interest (EOI) exercise at a guide price of $11.3 million. Located at the junction of Benoi Road and Pioneer Road, within the Jurong Industrial Estate and approximately 24km from the City Centre, it has a site area of over 500,000 sq ft and convenient access to the Ayer Rajah Expressway and Pan-Island Expressway.

The property includes a two-storey office block with a single-storey annexe office, three blocks of single-storey workshop, a mould loft building, a fabrication workshop and wharf, making it suitable for shipbuilding, ship or vessel repair and maintenance. It has a regular shape with a corner frontage of about 255m on Benoi Road and Pioneer Road and an average plot depth of about 213m. To the east, it has a roughly 230m frontage along the waterfront with a generally flat contour.

Joo Koon MRT Station is a five-minute drive away, while housing estates such as Jurong East, Jurong West, Bukit Batok and Boon Lay Gardens are located nearby.

Recent transactions of industrial property on Benoi Road show a 328,105 sq ft plot at 5 Benoi Road being sold in December 2020 at $10.5 million. In February this year, a shipyard with a site area of about 1.5 million sq ft at 55 Gul Road was acquired by ST Engineering for $95 million, which is about a 10-minute drive from 1 Benoi Road.

Isabel It, associate division director of Huttons Asia, asserts that the property is ideal for businesses looking to expand their operations, as a plot of land of such size meant for vessel building or maintenance usage is rarely available for sale.

The sale of the property is however subject to approval from relevant authorities. The EOI exercise for the property will close on April 27 at 3pm.

Given its excellent location, size and potential usage, the property at 1 Benoi Road could spark potential investors’ interest. As such, the market should remain optimistic in the bold venture.

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Check out the latest listings near Benoi Road, Jurong Industrial Estate for more information.…

GuocoLand to launch its 605-unit Lentor Modern this Saturday

The 99-year leasehold site located at Lentor Gardens recently drew only one bid from GuocoLand and Intrepid Investments (a subsidiary of Hong Leong Group) at the tender which closed today, with a bid of $486.8 million. This translates to a land rate of $985 psf per plot ratio (psf ppr).

A GuocoLand spokesperson shared their vision on this site, “We plan to develop a new high-end residential property with 533 units and childcare facilities of 600 sqm.” The future development will contribute to their goal to transform the Lentor Hills estate, and make it known as a premium residential area.

Mark Yip, the CEO of Huttons Asia said the $958 psf ppr bid is the lowest for a land parcel in the Lentor precinct, and this is the first residential GLS tender to see only one bid since the Silat Avenue GLS site in 2018, won by a consortium led by UOL Group for $1.035 billion. The site was launched as the 1,074-unit Avenue South Residences in September 2019 and is now fully sold.

In September last year, two other residential GLS sites at Lentor were awarded. The Lentor Central was won by a consortium comprising China Communications Construction, Soilbuild Group Holdings and United Engineers, with a bid of $481.03 million ($1,108 psf ppr). Meanwhile, a bid of $276.36 million ($1,130 psf ppr) by TID (a joint venture between Hong Leong Group and Mitsui Fudosan) was the top bid for the Lentor Hills (Parcel B), which can yield 265 units.

A GLS located at Lentor Hills Road (Parcel A) was sold at $586.6 million ($1,060 psf ppr) in January 2022. GuocoLand, Hong Leong Holdings and TID (a joint venture between Hong Leong Holdings and Mitsui Fudosan) developed the 598-unit Lentor Hills Residences from this site, which is expected to be launched soon.

The 605-unit Lentor Modern integrated development was launched last September by GuocoLand. 84% of the units were sold on launch weekend with an average price of $2,104 psf, and the site is now 88% sold. The GLS site was previously purchased for $784.1 million ($1,204 psf ppr) in July 2021.

According to Yip, bids have been on a downward trend since the launch of the first GLS at Lentor, likely because developers are mindful of the government’s efforts in selling land regularly. Additionally, developers may have been deterred by the cloudy economic outlook and risk of Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty.

The 1H2023 GLS Programme has two more available sites in the Lentor area; one at Lentor Central with 475 units yield, which is expected to be launched for the tender this month. The other, a 500-unit residential site at Lentor Gardens, is on the Reserved List.

Leonard Tay, head of research at Knight Frank Singapore states that these seven residential sites in Lentor could bring about some 3,500 new units to the area. This would make up around 11,000 new residents in a span of three to six years. The Lentor Gardens site is situated near the Lentor MRT station and connectivity to public transport, recreational facilities such as Thomson Nature Park and Yio Chu Kang Stadium and Sports Complex, as well as the CHIJ St Nicholas Girls’ School, providing potential homebuyers with more convenience.

Steven Tan, CEO of OrangeTee & Tie thinks the launch at Lentor Gardens could see units priced around $1,950 to $2,050 psf when it eventually does.

GuocoLand has established themselves as a major player in the Lentor Hills estate with their numerous projects (Photo: Samuel Isaac Chua/EdgeProp Singapore)

With this, the Lentor area is set to be transformed in the next few years, making it a prime spot for new and old residents alike.…