The tender for Farrer Court, Singapore’s first billion-dollar collective sale, closed yesterday with strong bids, industry players reckon.

The tender for Farrer Court, Singapore’s first billion-dollar collective sale, closed yesterday with strong bids, industry players reckon.

Speculation was that CapitaLand was the front runner and was engaged in negotiations late last night. Credo Real Estate, which is handling Farrer Court’s collective sale, declined to comment.

GuocoLand is also believed to have taken part in the tender. It clinched the freehold Leedon Heights earlier this year at $835 million or $1,062 psf of potential gross floor area.

Farrer Court, however, has an even higher absolute reserve price, of $1.2 billion, which works out to slightly over $700 psf per plot ratio (psf ppr) for the 99-year leasehold site. Bids for Farrer Court are believed to have clearly surpassed that.

The official expected price when Farrer Court’s tender was launched last month was $1.5 billion, or around $850 psf ppr.

The District 10 site, a privatised HUDC estate, is unique in being the only private residential site in the Farrer Road and Holland Road vicinity that is accorded a high plot ratio of 2.8 and a maximum height of 36 storeys.

Most of the surrounding sites are designated for either landed housing or low or medium-rise developments of up to five or 12 storeys.

Farrer Court boasts not only the highest asking price in terms of the absolute dollar quantum for a collective sale, it also has the biggest land area at 838,488 sq ft, for an en bloc sale site.

The maximum potential gross floor area of almost 2.35 million sq ft for the site - or about 1,800 apartments averaging 1,250 sq ft - means that a new development on the site would be the biggest condo development yet to be undertaken in Singapore, based on comments when thesite was launched last month.

Source: The Business Times, 28 June 2007