Orchard Turn condominium touches $4,000 psf record

Orchard Turn condominium touches $4,000 psf record

The sky is literally the limit at Singapore's tallest building in OrchardRoad. Units at the 56-storey Orchard Residences, set atop the Orchard MRTstation, were sold at prices exceeding $4,000 per square foot (psf) -breaking the previous record by its rival at Marina Bay. In fact, unlike the previous $3,450 psf seen last year at the Marina BayResidences, where only one unit hit that level, Orchard Residences'record-breaking feat saw "several" units being snapped up at $4,000 psf. Units above the 30th floor have also attained prices of over $3,200 psf,said Mr Liew Mun Leong, president and CEO of CapitaLand Group,co-developer of Orchard Residences, along with Hong Kong's Sun Hung KaiProperties. In its statement, CapitaLand said the project, which will be completed inlate 2009, was boosted by inquiries from "high net worth individuals inSingapore and from the region, even before commencement of official marketactivities." The 99-year luxurious condo is part of the iconic integratedretail-and-residential Orchard Turn project, which the two developerssnagged after placing a $1.38 billion winning bid at a government auction. But the action is not only at the upper echelons of the market, said areport by Jones Lang LaSalle yesterday. In fact, the feel-good sentiment at the high-end property sector hascascaded downwards, it said, noting that prices at mass-market projectsnow average close to $460 psf. Big year-end bonuses and the renewed confidence in the overall housingmarket can be accountable for the healthy recovery in the mass-marketproperty sector, which registered a quarterly increase of 9.5 per cent -the highest in seven years. Local buyers have been drawn to projects like The Centris, Yew TeeResidences and ClementiWoods. Following the strong showing of high-endproperties, developers were spurred to launch more mass market projects innon-prime districts, said the report, which cited examples like Yew TeeResidences and ClementiWoods as having attracted a strong following oflocal buyers. The numbers of mass market project buyers were also boosted by the growingnumber of Permanent Residents (PRs), it said. According to a 2005 General Household Survey, the number of PRs rose atthe rate of 30,000 annually from 2000 to 2005. These PRs, with family in tow, often reside in mass market projects thatare close to schools and major transportation nodes. However, what is missing within the mass market is the speculative buyingfound at their higher-end cousins. The 102 subsale transactions lodged in 4Q06 surpasses the previous peakset in 4Q05 by around 29.1 per cent. The Centris, City Square Residences, The Lakeshore, Southbank and VarsityPark were some of the projects that had subsale transactions, said JonesLang LaSalle. Despite this increase, it only reflects 4.3 per cent of the totalsubsale transactions lodged in that quarter. This figure had hit 39per cent in the 2Q95, when property speculation was at a high. URA figuresindicates that the level of mass market property speculation for the firstquarter of this year is likely to hover around 4.5 per cent.